Embodiment of Love and Destruction
by PsychicDreams
Summary: Love can be just as destructive as hate sometimes. Is the item Yuuko tells Watanuki to get the embodiment of all three? And why is he the only one who can touch it?
1. Chapter 1: Love and Destruction

Normally Watanuki didn't mind graveyards. Contrary to what many would have normally thought, graveyards had very little spirits, probably because of the sanctified ground. In fact, in his entire life, he'd never come across a spirit-infested graveyard, as strange as that was. Usually, if he saw a spirit in the graveyard, they were newly buried and left soon after. Oh, the graveyard was never a _happy_ place to be, but it was never haunted or evil.

He wished he could have lived under this illusion for the rest of his life, but as usual, the evil happened to him and that evil's name was…Ichihara Yuuko.

"…I don't want to go in there," he stated flatly.

"Wimp."

Watanuki was trying very hard not to burst a blood vessel and his eyebrow twitched spasmodically under the strain as his fury-tinted blue eyes turned to stare hatred and irritation at the boy next to him. "If you could see what I see," he hissed like a cobra, "you _wouldn't_ call me a wimp, you _ass_!"

"I do see what you see out of this eye and I still say you're a wimp."

Yuuko had sent them quite too cheerfully for his state of mind to a graveyard. At first, he hadn't seen the need of Doumeki to accompany him on this sort of venture since all the graveyards he'd known had been, while not cheery places, at least mostly safe. Then, of course, Yuuko had dropped the bomb: the graveyard was old and forgotten and hadn't been sanctified in at least seventy years.

Looking at it now, it was clear everyone had forgotten about this place. It was overrun with weeds and the grass looked an unhealthy brownish shade of green. The gate had all but fallen off its hinges with decay and the black smoke was so thick inside it was impossible to see anything else. The only reason that it hadn't spilled out into the streets was that one single charm on the stones next to the gate entrance managed to still vaguely work.

"I don't get it," he muttered. "Even if there wasn't a priest or caretaker of this graveyard, why's it still full of spirits and stuff? The ground is supposed to be sanctified, right?"

"I don't know."

"You idiot! You're supposed to be the son of a _priest_ and you don't know?! Ugh, you really are useless!"

Doumeki seemed to be in a bad mood that day, since the look the archer favored him with was lacking just that edge of stoic he was used to. "The only reason you'll be able to enter and not pass out is because of this is useless person."

He was already stalking toward the gate before finishing speaking, leaving a stunned Watanuki still standing there. Doumeki had _snapped_ at him? _Man, I knew it. The world is going to end now!_

"Wait up!"

Watanuki hurried to catch up, but the moment he stepped over the threshold into the graveyard, it felt as if any second, his internal organs were going to shut down. Like an evil poison, the black smoke tried to infiltrate into him through his breathing. He almost coughed up a lung until Doumeki reached out to grip his hand tightly.

"I can't see anything through this black stuff…"

"She told me where to go, just don't let go of my hand."

He would have snapped if Doumeki could have gotten it, why was he needed, but he knew why. Doumeki could get him to the spot it was supposed to be, but the item they needed to retrieve was in a strange pocket dimension that only he could reach and grab it.

Sometimes he would catch sight of some spirits lingering in the fog of black that rose from the corrupted ground like steam and the looks that he saw on those faces were not friendly. They resented his very living presence. In short, they had long since passed being ghosts to being poltergeists. The only reason they were still here instead of haunting was because of the wards.

"Somebody should purify this place soon," he muttered against Doumeki's shoulder, trying to breathe around the clean aura that the other boy had just by being there.

"I think it would it would take several priests to purify this place. I'll leave a newer ward at the gate, but that's all I can do."

Doumeki's voice was back to normal, as if he hadn't snapped at Watanuki earlier, but the bespectacled boy still remembered that tone. Since it had never happened before, he couldn't forget it. Despite all the abuse he constantly heaped on the other boy, never once had Doumeki ever gotten irritated and responded in kind until today. Had he really said something that bad? He _should_ apologize when they finished their task. Whether he could actually do it or not remained to be seen. He couldn't even say 'thank you' to the jerk, much less apologize…

"We're here."

The words penetrated into his thoughts and he blinked, waving a hand in front of him, as if trying to clear the smoke for even a few seconds, like one did when someone was smoking. At first he didn't think it was working, but he managed to catch a glimpse of gold. His watery eyes, still stinging from the evil fog of the graveyard, latched onto that only flash and he frantically reached out.

It was much like how one tried to find the chain of a light fixture when the room was pitch black. His arm waved wildly, hoping his hand would come into contact with something that had hard substance.

"Ouch!" he hissed when he found it, knocking whatever it was to the ground and bruising the back of his hand.

"What is it?"

"My hand hit whatever it was. Damn, that thing's really hard."

"Careful, it cut your hand, which means it's also sharp."

He hadn't noticed that before, but the cut was shallow and didn't bleed for more than a few seconds. Clutching Doumeki's hand tighter, he knelt toward the ground, fumbling like a blind man as he searched for what he knocked over. Taking away one of his senses, the most relied on being his sight, all his other senses were so much more attune. His hearing caught every breath Doumeki made; his touch was electrified of the weeds that rubbed against his skin irritatingly.

After a few seconds, he found it and when he tried to pick it up, he found how heavy it was. He could still pick it up with one hand, but it was abnormally heavy and it was an extremely weird shape, almost like a donut…

"I got it, let's get out of here, before those spirits try to test your protection." He coughed behind the fist that clutched the prize. Purifying aura or not, his condition was getting worse. Breathing was getting harder and the coughing fits were starting up with more frequency again.

Getting out took even longer than getting in. It felt like he was trying to run through waist high water, slogging through it at an interminable way. By the time he managed to get literally dragged out the gate by the archer, he was ready to just up and faint.

"Oi, we're out."

For the first time in what felt like years, though it couldn't have been more than twenty minutes, he felt as if he was breathing fresh, clean air. He stood there gasping, not even paying attention to what Doumeki was doing at the gate and just reveled in it. He didn't even look back when his companion joined him at his side.

"So that's what it was."

"Huh?" Watanuki finally looked down at the hand clutching what he'd been sent to get and he gaped. It was a golden, elaborate crown, and it had cut his hand to ribbons with its sharp edges.

"How can you see it?"

"Guess you must have pulled it into the material world." Doumeki shrugged, as if he didn't care, and dragged out a handkerchief from his pocket. "Wrap this around your hand if you're gonna carry that thing."

Shifting the crown delicately to his other hand so it didn't cut him again, he allowed Doumeki to wrap his red, blood-soaked fingers and palm. He didn't dare give the crown to Doumeki just in case it disappeared back into the spirit realm. He didn't know if his mere presence, the fact that he was holding it, was the only reason it was in the material world and he didn't really want to chance it. Yuuko could be really scary…

"Be sure to wash that with antiseptic when you get back to your apartment."

"I know," he snapped as they began walking. Every step he took sent the tiniest of jolts through his hand and it stung something horrible, but at least the handkerchief stopped up the bleeding. "Um…hey…"

"What?"

"Um…I-I'm sor-sor-sor-sorry," he muttered out, having to shove the word through an obstruction in his throat. It had taken less effort to go through the cursed graveyard than to apologize to the damn archer and damn it, it was going to be the _only_ time, so he'd better appreciate it.

A moment of silence. "For what?"

"Stupid!" he yelled at him. "For earlier! Just before we went into that cursed graveyard, I made you mad and I'm apologizing! The great and merciful king is giving you a once-in-a-lifetime apology, so remember and savor this moment!"

"…Oh. I forgive you."

Watanuki's eyebrow spasmodically twitched again in annoyance, but he could find nothing to yell at him about. "I don't know what got you so upset in the first place," he muttered under his breath.

Doumeki didn't answer and he was about to press the matter when Yuuko's shop came into view. The archer barely paused in his walking when Watanuki began to turn onto the paved stone way that led to the doors of the building and he sent a nonplussed look at that wide, retreating back. That wasn't like Doumeki, not saying what he wanted for lunch the next day.

"Come inside, Watanuki, and we'll take care of your hand," Yuuko's voice filtered outside from somewhere deep in the bowels of the hell that was her shop. He didn't even bother wondering how she knew. He just accepted that she did and left it at that.

"I got your crown, Yuuko-san."

The girls rushed up to him as he took off his shoes and carefully took the golden crown, the edges now stained red from his blood. The way they handled it was a little too cautious for him and he could only watch in perplexity as they walked, each step in time with the other, down the hall.

Yuuko noticed his stare and answered his question before he could ask it. "That crown thirsts for blood. It cut your hand so it could feast on your blood. Every king that has ever worn it has given at least half his blood to it."

"Wh-why?" he stuttered when she led him to the kitchen and began rummaging around for her first aid kit. "Why would people give blood to a crown…which shouldn't even need blood!"

"The crown absorbs blood literally. The metal it was made out of was cursed by a spirit a very long time ago, so when the crown was forged, that metal still held the curse." Almost too expertly, she opened the first aid kit and reached for his hand still tied with Doumeki's handkerchief. "In return for sacrificing their blood to it, any country that the king wished to conquer, it would make sure they succeeded. No matter what the king wanted, it would make sure it would happen, in war or otherwise."

"What happened to the kings?" he muttered through gritted teeth as Yuuko began unwrapping his hand as carefully as she could. The material was sticking to his skin and pulling at all the closed cuts on his hand and it hurt like hell.

"Those that went to war eventually were killed in battle. And if they didn't die in battle, they were assassinated. Let me put it this way, no king who ever owned the crown ever died peacefully after a long life. But considering all that, can you imagine what would happen if that crown got into the hands of someone in power? It would be Adolph Hitler all over again, only three times the cruelty and overwhelming success. Someone could conquer the whole world with this crown, if we didn't kill ourselves by using all the bombs all the countries seem to have."

"Adolph Hitler was that German guy from the 1940's, right?" It took a bit of effort to recall his World History classes and when he did, he shuddered. "Then I'm glad I got it before someone else did. But how come I was the only one that could pick it up?"

"The lover of the last king that wore it placed a spell on it after the king died," Yuuko explained, tossing the ruined cloth in the trash and beginning the painstaking task of cleaning out the cuts of dirt and dried blood. "The castle was about to get under siege by a rebellion after the man died, so the lover cast a spell to make sure the destruction the crown could cause could never happen again. He sealed it in the spiritual world, so that only he himself, who could see such things, could only get it again."

"But if only the lover could get it out, how did I?"

"How do you think?"

Watanuki tried to think around the stinging pain from his hand. "I…don't…know," he muttered through gritted teeth.

"You can be so dense sometimes, Watanuki," Yuuko chastised with a smile. "You're the reincarnation of that lover."

"_What?!_ You mean I was _gay_ in another life?! Damn! I don't believe this! And I was the lover of some damn tyrant!"

"He may have been a bit of a tyrant, but actually, that last king was the only one who actually tried to keep the violence to a minimum and rule as justly as he could. Yes, he was a bit corrupted, the crown does that, but he was as normal as he could be otherwise. He fought the blood instincts of the crown as best he could. He tried to just use to keep wars from breaking out. But the crown can only bring destruction and in the end, he was assassinated. Both the king and his lover knew that he was going to die of an assassination, but despite that, the lover was so distraught over it, he did the spell to seal it."

It was taking all his concentration not to screech out how badly his hand hurt as she finally began to wrap his hand with gauze and bandages. "After hearing all this, I'm glad that I went to get it, despite what happened. I don't want that to be used, if that's what it does. But why was it in that graveyard?"

Yuuko put her chin on her hand as she sat at the table while he nursed his abused hand near his chest. "The crown corrupted the ground. The only way for the graveyard to be used would be to be constantly purified by priests otherwise it'll become like you saw. People eventually said that the graveyard was too much to deal with and forgot about it. It'll take a long while, but it will eventually purify itself if we leave it alone, now that the crown is gone."

The girls came running into the kitchen as lively as ever and suddenly the mostly quiet kitchen was filled with a cacophony of noise from Yuuko, the girls, and Mokona, who naturally appeared out of nowhere. Watanuki glanced toward the hallway toward the treasure room, where the crown was no doubt sitting, and wondered what his old self must have thought about the king he was the lover of.

_I wonder what he was like?_

Down the street and resting inside the shrine, Doumeki sneezed.

** End **


	2. Chapter 2: Loyalty Beyond Death

"Lord Kami, the king has called for you."

Kami looked up from the flowers he was trimming and toward the guard, dressed head to toe in black that stood uneasily in the doorway. "Very well, I'll be right there."

It was no wonder why the man was uncomfortable around him. Many were. Not only was he a powerful sorcerer, but the concubine of the king. For the sake of a child, the king was indeed married and the queen was pregnant, but it was quite obvious that the love of the king's life was not his wife.

The queen had made it no secret she hated him, not only for his position but his looks. The length of his silky, black hair and his fair, pale unmarred skin was unknown in this southern, dark country where almost everyone tanned in various shades of brown and washed out colored hair.

A year had passed since he had come to this country and had become the lover of the king. For someone like himself, who had been cast out of his own country and wandered on his own, it was shocking he'd been picked up by the king. When he'd found out about the crown, he understood why he'd been drawn to this place. The crown had called him to make a success of the country and he had made it so. His magic had been nothing short of spectacular and the kingdom was one of the highest world powers. Rumors of the crown and mage under the king had kept anyone from attacking.

The crown. Beelzebub. The chief lieutenant of Lucifer himself; part of the unholy trinity of Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Astaroth. The demon associated with the deadly sin of pride.

Kami hated the crown and all it represented. The destruction and pain that it constantly sowed into the earth and lives of those around it was sinfully terrifying, making victory blood-soaked and devious, much like the battle with the Arch Angels and Fallen Angels when Lucifer challenged God. A blood-soaked and heart-wrenching battlefield was the only possible outcome, rain falling like tears and leaving you feeling devoid of warmth.

With a sigh, he stood, the silk of his kimono rustling around him and falling to expose a slim shoulder. His clothing was unknown to this country as well. He had yet to see someone else in a kimono here.

He strode down the hallway lit by torches in brackets on the walls, the gray stone under his feet cold and seeping into his skin. He passed along the guarded room where the crown rested and he could almost feel the malice that radiated through the wooden door. It truly was the reincarnation of evil. It corrupted all it touched, seeking only blood and more blood. Once he'd arrived at the castle, he'd studied about it all he could and among all that he'd found, he'd found that this king was the only one that had had any success at somewhat controlling it.

The study door was partially open when he arrived and he paused at the raised voices coming from it. It didn't take long to recognize one of those voices to be that of the queen's. With a calm expression plastered on his face, he pushed the door open the rest of the way and bowed a little to the king sitting behind his desk. "You called for me, my lord."

If looks could have killed, he surely would have died after the look the queen sent him, blistering with hate. Without so much as another word, she swept from the room, slamming the door behind her. Despite her hatred of him, he did worry about her. At the month of her pregnancy, she really shouldn't wander around like that otherwise it would trigger premature birth of her child.

"Kami," came a tired voice. "I missed you today. I wish you would join me when I'm working."

Kami managed a small smile, striding up to lean against the chair and in the arms of the king, and let that head of short, blonde hair rest against his chest. "Willingly go into the viper pit? I think not. The more attention I draw, the worse it is for me. I don't wish to get noticed by people who will risk your wrath to have their way with me. After all, I'm the only one that looks like this. I'm exotic."

King Xhaiden sighed and pulled him closer until he was almost sitting in that warrior's lap. "I know the truth of that, but I really can think of nothing but you when you're not there."

"You seem tired today. Shall I let you sleep?"

Xhaiden's head tilted up and he sent a pointed glance at the bed on the other end of the room. Since the king preferred to not stay in the same room as his wife, even to just sleep, his study had been turned into a temporary bedroom at his request. Most of the time, Xhaiden was to be found either in the study sleeping, or in Kami's bed.

"Perhaps a little workout and then some of your stories."

"As you wish, my lord," Kami murmured as those callused hands, used to wielding swords, began pushing off the top of his kimono…

****

"It is said that the battle between the Demons, originally Fallen Angels, commanded by Lucifer, and the Seven Archangels, led by God, was horrendous. Mortals had no idea of the battle being waged in heaven. The Archangels were beautiful to behold, their holy swords lighting up against the demons. With one sweep of their arm, they could defeat a hundred demons."

Kami's hand wandered through Xhaiden's hair, the king's head resting in his lover's lap, eyes sleepy as he listened to story. The king never seemed to grow tired of the stories that Kami told him. In truth, he never minded telling them, since it reminded him of the country he could no longer go back to.

The army that Lucifer gathered, who used to be an Archangel named Samael, was nothing short of spectacular, but against the fierceness and righteous anger of the other Archangels, who felt betrayed by their companion, there was no hope. Lucifer lost against God and was cast out of heaven, along with his followers, and never allowed to enter again."

"You know, Kami, what'll happen eventually right?"

Kami blinked, drawn from the story he had been telling. The relaxed expression he had became tainted with sadness and his heart began crack once again. He knew what Xhaiden was referring to and it never failed to make him want to cry. "You will be facing your death soon at the hands of another."

"There's no other way, since I'm not in a war. Everyone who has ever had the crown has met this fate." The king's hand lifted to cup Kami's cheek and Kami's deep blue eyes were filled with unshed tears and unhappiness. "I don't want to leave you though."

His hand lifted to cover that of the warrior's. "Never fear, my lord. When you die, I will be following shortly after."

"I want you to live, Kami. I don't want you to do that."

Kami shook his head, putting on a sad but reassuring smile. "My lord, without you, there is no way I can live. It would be cruel to ask me to still be alive if you're not."

He'd never felt so strongly attached to anyone than he did to Xhaiden. He'd been alone for so long after he'd been cast out from his home because of his strong magic. Never again had he thought he'd find another home. He'd had nothing and Xhaiden had given him everything he'd ever wanted. Only Xhaiden would ever have his undying loyalty.

Xhaiden seemed to want to argue, but was too worn out after their love making to do so. Those green eyes closed and his breathing became even in sleep. Little did the king know that Kami had been working on his own to seal the crown. He had just finally worked out the details of the spell. He would not allow it to bring any more destruction and death. For hundreds of years, the evil the crown radiated had destroyed more than a million lives.

It was time to stop the vicious cycle of death.

****

Amid the shaking of the castle and the yells and shrieks of pain, Kami could still feel the evil of the crown in front of him. The guards that had been outside the door were busy trying to defend the castle against the rebellion's forces. It had spread quickly among the people that King Xhaiden had been assassinated three days ago. The rebellion had to have been building for years for them to act so quickly.

Kami had no time to weep over the death of his beloved. Even if he felt like he was about to die of grief, he still had work to do. His death would be coming soon, whether by his own hands or an outside force, he didn't know. Either way, he still had to seal this crown before he died.

"Destruction encased in gold," he chanted, hands beginning to glow white with his magic, "you have done enough damage. Beelzebub; Leviathan; Astaroth. Incarnation of hate; right hand of the evil of Lucifer." As if the crown had an idea of what he was doing, the malice he could sense coming off of it increased. If he opened his eyes, Kami knew he'd see the red of blood that stained the gold. Red of his king's blood. "No matter what name you shall bear, it shall not help you. Your time is over. Sleep until a time comes when you will finally face what you sow."

Footsteps, running feet, were heading in his direction. The white glow was steadily increasing so that it penetrated his closed lids even. He could feel the binds of steel-like cords wrapping around the crown. The rage, the hate, the desire for revenge, assaulted all his supernatural senses and he knew he couldn't allow anyone to ever break this seal. He had to make sure none but him could release it.

"In the name of the Archangels that cast Lucifer out of heaven, I now bind you to sleep. I now bind so that until I, and I alone, release you."

With a flash of mental wrath, the crown faded from his outward sight. His arms fell back to his sides listlessly, now able to finally to feel the weight of his grief. The wooden door shattered behind him and he turned slowly, almost too serenely, to look into the faces of three blood-soaked men. By their clothing, they could only be from the rebellion's forces.

Knowing that they would see any action he made as dangerous, he deliberately lifted his hands, the obscenely bright sunlight streaming in from the small window illuminating his form and giving the deceptive impression he was readying magic.

_The soldiers didn't waste a moment to attack. Swords flashed and sliced easily through the air and skin like a hot knife through butter. Red flashed and soaked the silken kimono. As if in slow motion, the sorcerer's body slumped toward the ground. Upon that beautiful face was a smile._

Watanuki let out a cry of fear and sat bolt up from his futon. Yuuko had insisted he stay the night in the shop. It felt like the middle of the night. He could even hear the slight snoring of Mokona near the door. What was that dream? Was that dream of his past life with the crown? It made him shiver. That man, Kami, didn't even seem like himself. Too serene and…

"Damn," he muttered to himself. "That was a little too terrifying. Did I dream of it because of what Yuuko said? I wonder who the king was reincarnated as…Oh well, if I ask Yuuko, she'll just charge me."

His eyelids still heavy with sleep, he crawled back down under the sheets of the futon without so much as a whisper of a dream again. Across town, Doumeki Shizuka did the same.

** End **


	3. Chapter 3: Trigger A Dream

"Watanuki-kun, what happened to your hand?!"

Watanuki looked up from his desk at Himawari's worried countenance. It was no surprise really. Yuuko had gone all out on his bandaging so that his hand was entirely encased in white and he couldn't even twitch his fingers, much less bend them. And unfortunately, it just happened to be his right hand too that was injured, so the idea of writing anything was quickly tossed in the scrap pile.

"Just…a little job of Yuuko-san's that I did the other day."

Her concerned look didn't change and though he would have normally explained about the job any other day, what he had gone to fetch, something held him back this time. Maybe it was because of the knowledge of what the crown could do; maybe it was because, even though it was not her fault, Himawari's stigma of bad luck; maybe he just didn't feel like talking about it. It didn't really matter why he didn't say it. He could only give Himawari more reassurances and try to concentrate on the lesson.

As usual, no one except Himawari and Doumeki bothered him about his hand, but that was no surprise. He really preferred it that way, actually. Too many people made him jittery. In fact, if he could have gotten away with it, he would have preferred to have Himawari his only friend.

Either way, the crown weighed heavily on his mind. So much so, in fact, that when Doumeki asked him about it, he didn't respond with any of his usual yelling. It was strange how he had been unable to talk about the crown with Himawari, but had no inhibitions about telling it to the archer. What was the deal with that?!

The sun was so nice as it shown down at lunch, a faint breeze rustling the trees and casting a few leaves to the wind. He watched their lazy travel with bemused eyes. Just being with Doumeki and Himawari made the lonely, cold, and upsetting dream the night before seem surreal. Or maybe it was his reality that was surreal, as if this reality was the dream. Without conscious thought, his eyes staring at the wide expanse of blue sky faded out of focus.

"_How far can I fall before those arms will catch me? Or shall I receive eternal punishment for the unforgiving transgressions I have committed? Loving the figure of a man, the heart of a man, is that not any different than loving that of a woman? I followed him in death. How much longer must I wait—_"

"_Watanuki-kun!!_" came Himawari's voice in his ears, suddenly sounding strangely forceful with concern.

"Gah!!" he screeched, when his vision was filled with the worried gazes of his schoolmates and he landed flat on his back in surprise. "Wh-what is it?! You both scared the hell out of me!"

And why was his injured hand _throbbing_ in pain, when he'd touched nothing with it?!

"What was all that about?"

"What was all what about?" he retorted defensively back, looking wildly between the two and seeing only worried confusion on their faces.

"You were going through some sort of speech in an extremely formal but old version of Japanese," Doumeki explained after a moment. "I've only heard it once or twice. My grandfather spoke it on very formal occasions."

"I did?" he asked stupidly.

"You did, Watanuki-kun. It was a very pretty, melancholy piece. Did you read it somewhere?"

"Read what somewhere?"

He was beginning to feel like a real idiot, but he honestly had no memory of saying a thing since lunch had began and he'd quietly explained to Doumeki about the crown's history while they waited for Himawari to join them in their usual spot.

"You're bleeding again."

"Eh?" Watanuki looked down at his hand in response to Doumeki's words and he realized that his white bandages were being soaked with blood. He'd been gripping his wrist pretty hard in response to the pain, but he hadn't touched the wounds. Why was it bleeding now?! Why was the blood spreading?! Why wasn't it stopping?!

Damn it, why was he panicking?!

Doumeki's golden eyes were suspicious and as they met Watanuki's blue, he knew that the archer suspected supernatural causes. It was not hard to make the leap, considering what he'd told the archer about the crown and if he was sputtering stuff that sounded like it belonged in a classical textbook that he _couldn't remember doing_, then there was something wrong.

"Kunogi, let Watanuki borrow your cellphone for a minute. Go tell the teacher that I'm taking Watanuki home."

The poor girl was so concerned that she did what Doumeki said to do without a single bit of hesitation and was already running across the courtyard before he could even open his mouth to protest.

"Call that woman. Tell her what happened and to meet at the temple."

"Why the hell should I do what you say?!" he snapped back, panic still spreading through him like a drug and invoking his adrenaline. "In case you hadn't noticed, I only have one hand!"

The blood was dripping on his shoe now, but it was so painful that he couldn't even bear the thought of putting pressure on his hand to try to stop the bleeding. He didn't know what to do, didn't know who to rely on. It didn't make any sense for the wounds that had closed up nicely according to Yuuko, to suddenly break open now!

"Then tell me what her number is and I'll call her."

"Why don't I just go to her damn shop?!"

"You're not because I can't go and I want to be there for her explanation." As if that settled it all, Doumeki's golden eyes were staring at him in such a powerful way that he was cowed and rattled off the woman's number without another moment of hesitation. Was this the way Himawari had felt when Doumeki had barked orders at her?

The girl he'd just been thinking about came running back carrying both their school bags. Doumeki wasted no time in handing back the cellphone and dragging an unresponsive boy to his feet. They were already setting off at a brisk pace to the shrine before Watanuki could gather his wits again.

It was scary how well organized Doumeki had become in a crisis. Had he been alone, Watanuki knew he'd have just gone to Yuuko's and been done with it, but he'd never had a thought of what he would do with others around him. He wasn't used to dealing with people and would have had no idea how to have them help in a situation.

He was used to being alone.

"Is Yuuko-san going to show up?" he gasped, trying frantically to keep up with the longer-legged pace of his rival. He tried not to look down at the trail of blood he was leaving behind, or the words whispered behind hands of those of the passersby.

"Yes. She said she's on her way." There was a pause. "She sounded…serious. And worried."

That knowledge did not make him feel better. In fact, it only made his panic worse because Yuuko did not _get_ worried and very rarely did she get serious. This meant bad news had come to town and if he had to hazard a guess, it was probably gunnin' for him.

Thankfully the shrine was closer to the school than his apartment or Yuuko's shop and they were there in a matter of moments. Doumeki pulled off his jacket to wrap Watanuki's profusely bleeding hand so that he did not bleed on the wooden floors and dragged him to the kitchen sink.

Instead of taking the time to painstakingly unwrap his hand, Doumeki merely grabbed the nearest pair of scissors and cut the now red and sticky mass on his skin. Watanuki winced and tried to stop the tears of pain that pooled in his eyes as the archer began to peel off the layers of bandages that had tried to become one with his hand.

He nearly fainted when he saw what was underneath the layers of gauze and tape. His hand had become strangely swollen. The edges of each cut were tinted black and green, as if he had an infection and the wound hadn't been cleansed the night before. The blood that came out suddenly now was an ugly brownish muddy color, as if there was something mixing it.

"_Wh-wh-wh-what the hell?!_" he screeched in fear, turning panicky eyes toward the shocked archer next to him. "What's happening, Doumeki?! _What's happening?! What's going on?!_"

"It's because of the crown."

Watanuki whirled as best he could to look behind him at Yuuko's voice and only Doumeki's tight grip on his wrist, keeping his hand hovering over the sink, kept him standing there. He winced when Doumeki turned on the tap water on full blast in an effort to clean the unhealthy looking wounds, but it didn't seem to be helping any.

"Wh-why is it the crown?! Yuuko-san, what's going on?!"

"Stop panicking, Watanuki," she told him, but her face and voice were deadly serious and that only made him feel worse. She knew all the answers, so she knew how to fix it, right?! This was Yuuko! She _had_ to have a cure up her sleeve that would charge him for three months worth of labor and then she'd laugh at how simple the cure was and demand her sake.

Right?!

"Did you do or say anything strange at all today, Watanuki, prior to this happening?"

"No—!"

"He suddenly started talking in extremely formal language, as if he were reciting poetry from a textbook," Doumeki interrupted. "He doesn't have any memory of that happening, but right after that, his hand started to bleed and it hasn't stopped since."

Slowly, Yuuko approached the two boys at the sink and her eyes stared at mess that was Watanuki's hand. Watanuki himself felt his whole body beginning to shake, the tears of panic very real in his eyes. He'd come across many a dangerous situation before, but nothing that struck this kind of terror in his heart like this. There was always that emotional net around him when dangerous things would happen, that feeling of "even if it seems horrible now, it will be all right" hidden deep away in his subconscious that he never registered.

He didn't feel that now.

"I'm going to be as concise as possible about this and I'm under the assumption that Watanuki has told Doumeki-kun about the history of the crown." Seeing Doumeki's nod, she merely continued on without pause. "The crown should never have existed in the first place, but either way, it's evil began during the crown's conception. A very powerful sorcerer was brutally sacrificed to gift magic to it and during his last few moments, he spat out a terrible curse for any that would use it. You all know what that curse was."

Doumeki inched closer to Watanuki's frightened form, now seeming thinner and paler with fear. The water was turned off as it was doing more harm than good and even as she talked, Yuuko reached into her pocket to pull out a bottle of salve, that she handed to Doumeki without breaking her stride.

"To make a very long story as short as possible, here it is: the crown eventually found itself in the hands of King Xhaiden. King Xhaiden used the crown as best he could, but the crown is something that makes wishes possible through destruction. King Xhaiden was not as bad as most, but he did end up slaughtering at least half of two different countries before he could learn how to keep the crown from controlling him. After a few years, his wish was a companion he could trust and love and the crown even brought him that.

"The companion he brought was not a woman, but a male. A very, very _powerful_ male sorcerer. He was probably on my level, at least. With only one demonstration of his power against a rebellion force, and no one dared challenge King Xhaiden's country. The sorcerer and he did indeed fall in love and the sorcerer became the king's concubine. After a year had gone by, the crown, as usual in history, ended up having the king assassinated. Just before the sorcerer's death, who had vowed he would commit suicide at the very least upon King Xhaiden's death, sealed the crown so that no one could ever use it again. The only one able to unseal it was himself. Shortly after the magic was completed, rebel soldiers killed him.

"The reincarnation of that sorcerer, as you know, is Watanuki. The reincarnation of King Xhaiden is Doumeki."

Doumeki had just finished spreading a thick layer of the salve on Watanuki's hand when Yuuko finished talking. Watanuki could only watch in mounting horror and concern as Doumeki froze and finally lifted his head. There was the strangest look on his face. An expression that Watanuki was sure no one had ever seen on anyone before; an expression that had no name.

After all, what expression did one have when they found out that they used to be an evil, blood-spilling tyrant in another life?

The salve had managed to stop the bleeding, but it could do nothing for the unhealthy color and shape of the wounds on his hand. His whole body was shaking again and for a moment, the only thought in his head was the mortified feeling that he and Doumeki had been a blood-and-death pact pair of lovers.

"So what's causing Watanuki's hand to be like this?" Doumeki prompted after the moment of silence had gone on too long. The archer's voice was even peculiar. It wasn't stoic, but the strange lilting of the tone had no name either. It was as if there were something in strangling him deep in his throat, or he was trying very hard to hide his emotions and not let them out, lest they overwhelm him.

"The crown. Since it was pulled free of the seal that has bound it for so many, many hundreds of years, it knows that Watanuki is the reincarnation of Kami, the man who sealed it away. This is revenge."

"Re-re-revenge?" Watanuki stuttered with a squeaky voice, too upset, panicky, and hurting to even think about crying.

Yuuko sighed. "The crown knows only and has only one simple desire: destruction. Death. That was its curse: to bring death and destruction to any who would use it. The man that was sacrificed held great rage toward the living that murdered him, so he did not specify who would be the victim of curse. Or rather, should I dare say that he chose to specify the whole human race as the victim of the curse? The crown has only one instinct and that is to cause death and destruction. To fulfill the terms of the curse. Kami sealed the crown away for hundreds of years and in all that time, it could do nothing. It is like putting a pot with water to boil on the stove. It will get hotter and hotter and hotter as the pressure builds and when it is free, it all comes out. Unfortunately, when it became free, all that pressure and malice that had been built up went straight into Watanuki like a poison through his wounds."

"But the wounds were just fine last night!" Watanuki protested.

"It didn't activate the poison until for that very few brief seconds, your soul lapsed into who you were as Kami. That activated the magic and the result is what you see."

"Tell us how to stop it," Doumeki interrupted, as if he didn't care about knowing anything else. He was just a shade short of demanding, but Yuuko paid it no attention.

"You can't. Only I can. The only way to stop it is to destroy the crown and only I have the power to do that."

"Then do it!" shrieked Watanuki before he could help it.

"There's only one problem," the witch continued as if she hadn't heard him. "I can't act with that sort of power without a wish backing me. Don't ask the specifics, suffice it to say that's the rules."

"What'll happen if to Watanuki if we don't do something?"

Yuuko looked evenly into Doumeki's golden, probing eyes. "He'll die. Even if you amputated his hand, it wouldn't make a difference."

"Then I'll—"

"You can't. Neither can Watanuki."

"Why not?"

"Neither of you can afford the payment for this wish. Not even together."

The silence that surrounded them was nothing short of spectacular. It was heavy in the air, oppressive and full of the weight of Yuuko's words. Never once did a wisp of a silly smile touch her lips. Her eyes did not light up in teasing laughter. She was more serious than he had ever seen her in his life. Doumeki's eyebrows were twitching, his jaw tight as he gritted his teeth, and he seemed to be thinking hard and fast.

Watanuki could only faint finally, whether from bloodloss or the knowledge that he was going to die was unclear.

** End **  



	4. Chapter 4: Death Brings Revelations

His eyelids felt like they had ten-pound weights on them and it took a lot of effort them. When he did, he fought the urge to blink because he knew that if he closed them even once, he couldn't get them open again, he felt so tired. Slowly he rolled onto his side and used as much strength as he could to prop himself up on his elbow. He cast his blurry gaze around and it landed on a figure sitting in the corner. Doumeki, by his breathing, was asleep.

Watanuki crawled to his knees, making sure not to use anything with his right hand. He always let it hover in the air away from his body to make sure nothing touched it. It wasn't bleeding at the moment and he wanted to chance _nothing_ to have it start up again.

"Watanuki."

He looked at the doorway and Yuuko leaning there. Again, her face remained serious and he remembered the gravity of the situation. His legs were feeling weak, but the fact that they supported him still gave him a little bit of hope.

"Yuuko-san, what do we do?"

She nodded her head out at the garden and held a finger up to her lips to signal quiet. As silent as he could be, he shuffled behind her when she left the room and he guessed then that meant Doumeki hadn't slept for a while. He felt guilty that he once again dragged others into a mess that was all his fault. He could curse his previous self really bad right now if he were there.

"Let me put it this way, Watanuki. Your daily life is going to be shaken up for a bit. You can't go to school and the only thing that's keeping your hand from bleeding is the salve, which I happen to not have a lot of. I didn't foresee this."

Was she angry because she didn't know this was going to happen? He clutched his hand lightly to his chest and slowly sat down on the edge of the porch. His head was growing dizzy and his eyesight a tad blurry. Was this because he'd lost so much blood or was it because of the poison?

"You should stay in the temple grounds as much as possible, Watanuki. The protection the shrine gives should help to prevent anything more happening to you than what's already gone on. Also, stay around Doumeki as much as humanly possible. And try not to do a lot. Any stress on your hand will cause it to bleed again.

As she rattled off instructions, he listlessly nodded even if he wasn't paying attention. "Where are you going to be?"

"I'm going, for one, to get more salve for your hand and then see what I need to do about how to destroy that crown. Remember we're working against the clock, Watanuki."

He watched her walk away with a heavy heart. Was this what it was like for Yuuko to be the Dimensional Witch? Not so much as a twitch of panic. Not worry, no tears. Just a dead serious and determination to not lose.

****

Watanuki's condition grew steadily worse as the day passed. He was often sleeping during the day, haunted by dreams, and his steps and movements were increasingly sluggish. The light in his sapphire eyes grew fainter every time he woke up from a nap.

Doumeki hadn't even given school a single thought when he'd woken up from his own small rest. There was plenty do around the shrine, as well as keeping Watanuki from doing anything. Of everything that had come down the road at the two of them, he'd never been this worried about the loudmouthed, brash boy.

And when his mind wasn't busy worrying about Watanuki, he constantly kept turning over the knowledge of what his previous life used to be. What bothered him the most was that he had used the damn crown to kill people. He had been a tyrant. He honestly didn't want to know any details, like if he'd been a torturer on top of that. Sure, he'd stopped and according to Yuuko, he was the most kind-hearted king that had ever used the crown before, but that didn't change the fact that at one point he'd been a butcher.

Had that dream he'd had the day before yesterday really been a memory of his past life? He had thought vaguely that it was just a very strange dream, but had been unable to dismiss it so easily like that. If Kami was Watanuki in the previous life, he was dumbfounded. Kami had been physically fragile and thin, with an outstanding beauty. He had been refined and serene. The complete opposite, personality wise, to the Watanuki he knew now.

He glanced over his shoulder at Watanuki who was napping under a tree in the shade of the yard. It didn't bother him that in his previous life they had been lovers. That was then and this was now. Sure, he had an abnormal amount of caring for the boy who professed to hate him, but it wasn't love. They weren't about to suddenly become lovers. But he'd do anything to keep Watanuki alive. Watanuki kept his life interesting and he couldn't imagine one without the yelling and adorably funny antics of the bespectacled boy.

His eyes glanced at the gate to the shrine, always hoping that the slim but tall figure of Yuuko would show up. When nothing happened, he went back to sweeping, listening to the silence of shrine more than before. On the wind, he could faintly hear the sounds of Watanuki's breathing.

"Doumeki…" came a breathy whisper in his ear and he jumped a little, turning to glance at Watanuki's awake but abnormally tired face.

He was so intent on thinking of all the things that he had to do, he didn't even notice when Watanuki woke up and had tottered over to him. He frowned at how he looked a lot paler than before and the dark circles under those pretty blue eyes were growing more pronounced. Cheeks were growing a tad hollow since Watanuki, when he ate, couldn't keep anything in his stomach.

"You look horrible. Did you have a really bad dream?"

A peculiar look crossed Watanuki's face, as if he had just realized something of great importance. When it looked like the boy might collapse, his hand snaked around the thinner boy's waist to keep him from sinking to the ground. Faint splashes of red touched Watanuki's skin, giving him just the smallest tinge of color, and he raised an eyebrow when their eyes wouldn't meet.

"Let's get you to lie down. I've got to put some more salve on your hand and wrap up your hand again, so it doesn't start to bleed again."

In the end, Watanuki was so weak, he ended up carrying the boy back to the futon. He was abnormally light. He'd had occasion to carry his classmate several times before, but he'd never felt this insubstantial before. Since he always kept the first aid kit right next to Watanuki's bed, he merely grabbed the scissors and cut the bandages again. There was no point in trying to carefully remove the bandages since they were soiled anyway and have to be replaced.

"Hey, Doumeki…"

"Yeah?" he responded, taking a damp cloth and wiping the grime off the skin of Watanuki's hand before quickly beginning to massage more salve into the wounds to make sure they didn't think about bleeding.

"What do you think of me?"

Doumeki blinked slowly in surprise and lifted up his head to stare at the whispered question. Watanuki's head was turned away from him, but he could still see the flush of red on those cheeks. Was that a _blush_? What was the deal with Watanuki today? What sort of dream did that boy have?

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what do you think of me? Am I annoying or useful? Am I more trouble than I'm worth or do you…like me?"

The archer finished bandaging up Watanuki's hand, but the boy didn't pull his hand away from Doumeki's lap immediately. Scratching the back of his head a little, Doumeki thought about it. "You're not annoying and I've never thought that you're more trouble than your worth. I've always thought of us as friends."

"Friends, huh…"

"Look, if you're worried that in our past life we were lovers, don't. Just because we were then doesn't mean we are or have to be now, all right?"

"Really…"

Watanuki's face was slightly stiff and the fact that he had no expression on it said that there was something bothering him. He sighed, a little in irritation. Watanuki was beating around the bush about something. "Do you really want to know what I think of you?"

"Yes."

"Then look at me and I'll tell you."

For a moment, Doumeki didn't think he was going to, but finally that head turned to look at him and the most inscrutable look was in his eyes. It was a look that turned his stomach just a tad bit, knotting it for some reason. He spent a few more seconds trying to organize how he was going to say it so that Watanuki didn't end up yelling at him. It was really nice sometimes to be able to talk like this without the antics.

"Despite the fact that you constantly say that you hate me, I don't hate you. You're funny. Sure, you yell a little too loudly, but it's not bad. It's just who you are. I think you're a little too nice sometimes, but other than that…I don't find you annoying or anything. I like talking to you."

Embarrassed at all the things he said, Doumeki could only look away for a brief moment before beginning to put away the things in the first aid kit. Watanuki didn't say anything after that and after a few minutes, he looked back and found the boy was asleep. He frowned when he noticed the glitter of a tear at the edge of his eye and wiped it away gently.

Damn, he wished he knew what had gotten into Watanuki.

****

When Watanuki woke again, the sun was almost down and Doumeki wasn't anywhere to be found in the room. Yuuko was sitting calmly at his side, as if waiting for him to open his eyes. She seemed a little less serious and actually gave him a calm smile. Did that mean she had gotten something worked out?

The hopeful question must have shown on his face because she patted his shoulder as kindly as she could. "Don't worry, Watanuki. I brought some more salve and I think that things will work out fine."

He tried to be happy about it, but somehow, that failed. His smile became a tad watery and as hard as he tried to keep them at bay, tears leaked out of his eyes. He covered his face with the crook of one of his arms, though it made no difference, since she knew he was crying.

"You've had to face a lot of things lately you've been avoiding for a long time," Yuuko commented, and it was no surprise she seemed to know why he was upset. "That's what happens when you're facing death."

"It hurts, Yuuko," he muttered and they both knew he didn't mean his hand. "I wish I hadn't realized it, really. I wish I could forget that this feeling ever existed."

"Why?"

"Because I don't think he feels the same."

"Are you talking about Doumeki-kun?"

Watanuki sighed and curled onto his side in a fetal position and he felt a very slight pressure on his back. Craning his neck, he noticed Mokona looking at him in concern and that little…paw was rubbing his back, as if to comfort him. It forced a chuckle out amid his crying. He really was causing nothing but trouble to everyone, if even _Mokona_ worried about him.

"When I woke up this afternoon, I guess I noticed it. I'm always having dreams of that damn previous life of mine and for a while, I was really irritated. That's not my life now. So what did it matter. I kept thinking that it didn't matter to me. I kept telling myself that Doumeki could get any girl he wanted and probably would, so what happened in the past wouldn't ever happen again."

"Then you realized that you wanted it to happen?"

He nodded miserably. "I don't even know when it started, Yuuko-san. Somewhere along the way, I guess I subconsciously started to wait for him, expected him. He's always there whenever I think about him, but I don't have the right to expect more than that. Why did I have to fall in love with a guy like that?!" He choked a little while he tried to breathe and sob at the same time and Yuuko merely waited for him to calm down. "Honestly…I don't even know what's so good about that damn expressionless guy, but I can't stop thinking about him. When I really thought about the fact that I might die and that I'd never been in love…"

"That's when you realized that you'd been in love all along?"

"Yes…but there's no way that he could feel the same way about me. It would be like god falling in love with a mortal. It wouldn't happen."

Between Yuuko's calm quiet and Mokona's little hand rubbing his back, he fell asleep, still faintly crying.

** End **


	5. Chapter 5: A Confession Under Sunlight

By the time Watanuki woke up after crying himself to sleep, it was already all over with.

_Six hours earlier_

"Is he asleep?"

"Yes," Yuuko murmured, glancing up at the figure that darkened the doorway. One look at his face and she knew he hadn't heard Watanuki's tearful confession of his feelings. In truth, she was quite proud of her little employee for coming so very far in the past few days. If she thought about it, he was actually a very different person now than who he had been when he'd first stepped through the doors of her shop.

"You said you'd found someone who'd pay the wish?"

"I did," she answered, standing up and fishing out her pipe. She really needed a smoke before she began the real task of destroying the crown. The crown itself sat in a specially warded box, guarded by Mokona. Time was running out. Watanuki had about, at max, ten more hours.

"Who?"

She took a long pull at her pipe and very slowly let out the smoke, eyes traveling steadily to Doumeki who had put his hands in the sleeves of his shrine robes. She knew that while he appeared as usual, stoic and relaxed, that he was probably full of tension. Watanuki wasn't the only one in love, but Doumeki probably didn't realize it. She'd done quite a bit of research on the archer and had a decent guess that he'd probably never been in love before in his life and had no idea how to recognize his feelings for what they were.

"Apparently, somehow, the Ame Warashi found out about Watanuki's problem, though I made sure she is to tell no one about the crown, for safety's sake. When I walked in my shop, the pipefox made it quite clear that he wanted to pay the wish."

"The kudakitsune? How can the kudakitsune have enough to pay the wish for when neither us together would have enough?"

"You're forgetting that the kudakitsune is a spiritual creature, Doumeki-kun," she countered, adding a bit more tobacco to her pipe. "Both you and Watanuki are human. The kudakitsune has enough to pay for the wish, though it will be very saddening."

"Why?"

"Because in order to pay for it, the kudakitsune is basically giving everything it's got. It's giving up its entire existence. I'm a softie, so I will indeed protect its soul and give it back to the Ame Warashi for another existence, hopefully, but its time as the kudakitsune is running out."

"Watanuki really loves the kudakitsune."

"The kudakitsune has undying loyalty to Watanuki, much like Kami had for King Xhaiden. It'd do anything for him. When it learned that I needed someone who was able to pay the price for this wish, since I can't do it myself, it had no hesitation or regrets."

Doumeki's stare at her back was disapproving and she could imagine why. "I don't plan to tell Watanuki who it was that paid the wish and I don't plan on telling him the truth about why the kudakitsune will no longer be there."

"That doesn't make it any better."

"Ho?" she grinned and looked over her shoulder at him. "Overprotective are we, Doumeki-kun?"

The boy merely shrugged and Yuuko kept her giggles to herself for the time being. With one last pull on her pipe before putting it away and getting down to business. She'd need the entire yard for this, otherwise she might end up destroying the shrine. Mokona frowned and she beckoned to him to take up a post on her shoulder. Larg suppressed magic power and she'd need his help for this. Not only to suppress the crown's, but also her own. Too much power would bring a lot of unwanted consequences.

She gestured to Doumeki to go back in the temple and he did, leaving her alone outside with the box. It sat there like an evil black lump, glaring with metaphorical eyes at her. She couldn't help the fierce look she gave back at the crown inside of it. She didn't _like_ things like this messing with her Watanuki. She worked very hard with him to get him to the point where he was at and she was not about to let some damn crown destroy it all.

With one last gathering of her magic, her boot lashed out and knocked the lid open of the box. The evil that radiated off the crown was smug, as if it enjoyed the fact that it was getting revenge and killing an innocent, young boy. It was not surprising, since this was what the curse was.

"Damn hunk of metal," she told it, her face as determined as it had been earlier. There was no room for the irritation and anger she felt. She had to push it all aside and just focus on her job as the Dimensional Witch, even if it was hard sometimes. "You are not going to have the chance to destroy someone else's life. Do you remember what Kami told you when he sealed you?" she hissed with a faint smug smile of her own. "You'd stay sealed until the time when you'd finally experience for yourself the destruction you'd been giving other people. The time is now. No one messes with Ichihara Yuuko's things."

Her hair lifted by an invisible wind as her power climbed ever higher. The malice from the crown increased until it was black waves washing around her, but she was like a pure island it could not touch. Mokona's scowl was even more pronounced and the jewel on his head began to glow. He was like a little ball of light on her shoulder, his power encompassing both herself and the crown to prevent any damage to uninvolved things.

If the crown had had a human form, she had no doubt that its face would be filled with rage. Her smile was gone, replaced only by a freezing, ice-cold determination. Several purple butterflies, her symbol, gathered around her hands, but she paid them no attention. A minor side effect of such dealings, no matter who you were. When magic like this was being used, you inevitably drew your symbol to you.

"Kami called you Beelzebub, the right hand to the devil. I have seen many, many evil things in my time and I'm going to tell not to think so highly of yourself. You're just a crown with a curse on you with a penchant for death and destruction. You're nothing so exalted and I'm going to prove it."

By now the pressure of the rising magic on both sides were testing Mokona's limits and she could feel him shaking under the strain on her shoulder. She had to finish this now before it became too much to bear. Unlike the tone she'd used with Doumeki, she had already extracted the payment for the wish, so she had no need to wait.

She reached down to grip the crown tightly, dragging it out of the box. Not a single cut appeared on her hand and that seemed to only enrage it further. By this time, she was practically glowing with her magic, purple marred sometimes by the black, twisting smoke of evil the crown was giving off.

"Time to face your _own_ destruction," she told it impassively and tightened her hand. As if it were suddenly brittle and weak, the strands of gold and metal shattered under the force, trying to slice her to ribbons one last time, but their edges were now dull and useless.

Yuuko's power faded out and Mokona gave a little sigh, falling off her shoulder straight to sleep. She gave it a kindly smile, cuddling it tightly. He really did work much harder than anyone gave him credit for. Under her boots, the metal crunched as she walked to the shrine. She could grab the box on the way when she left and by the time Watanuki woke up, the pieces of the crown would have long faded away.

Really, in the end, Kami had finally stopped the cycle of destruction left in its wake. He should be very proud of his current incarnation.

_Present_

"You should be careful with your hand not to use it so much, but you're no longer filled with any evil poisons."

Watanuki listened to Yuuko's account, watching her with something close to amazement as she downed another cup of wine. Doumeki was busy changing the bandages on his hand and ignoring the fact that she had commandeered the all the alcohol in his entire house.

His hand looked as normal and clean as the night Yuuko herself had bandaged it several days ago. Really, part of him wished he'd been awake for when she'd destroyed the crown, instead of being useless and sleeping, even if she assured him that sleeping had been his safest thing to do.

"You can go to school and start working again and making me dinner again now," she continued. "Man, I'm starving. I've missed your cooking so much, Watanuki-chan!"

"First off, you drink away all the taste of my cooking!" he spat back, falling into a reassuring habit of yelling at her. The last few days of everyone so serious and such a life-threatening situation had made him forget just how much he rather enjoyed yelling at Yuuko, even if she never listened. "Second, don't call me '-chan'!"

"I think Watanuki-chan's mad at us!" Yuuko muttered with a giggle to Mokona beside her, who seemed a tad out of it. "Let's go find more wine, we drank the bottle!"

By the time Watanuki registered what this meant, she was already at the doorway and ignoring his pleading look. He didn't want to be alone with Doumeki, now that he realized his feelings and knew there was no way that Doumeki could ever love him back. The silence was awkward as the archer tied the last of his bandages and he chewed on his tongue a little.

"I'm glad it's over."

"What?" he stuttered, startled out of his own thoughts by Doumeki's abrupt comment.

"I'm glad it's over and you're okay."

Watanuki flushed bright red as Doumeki stood with the first aid kit in his hand. It wasn't like Doumeki to say something like that and he fidgeted where he sat. This was the perfect opportunity to say it, but it got clogged in his throat with fear. He wasn't used to dealing with people. He was always alone. He'd never confessed to anyone before. Was there some sort of rules that went along with this kind of thing?

"Wh-why are you telling me that?"

"Because it looked like you wanted to know. You were acting strange earlier and asking weird questions."

_Now, now, now. Do it now, you idiot! Say it!_ "D-Doumeki, I li-li-li-li-like you."

Now that was one piece of horribleness. He'd stuttered his whole way through it and sounded like an idiot. His cheeks felt so hot with his blush that he almost didn't dare to look up the archer that towered over him. When he did, he wished he hadn't, because Doumeki's expression hadn't changed. That was no surprise, he must get confessions every day, but was so used to confessions even from guys?

"What do you mean?"

"What do you mean, what do I mean?" Watanuki snapped, leaping to his feet. "I meant just what I said! Pay attention!"

"My question is, do you mean you don't hate me or do you mean that you love me?"

How could he ask such a thing so bluntly?! Watanuki's palms began to sweat in nervousness, stinging his cuts a little, but it kept him from wanting to just fade away and pretend he'd never said anything. If he'd just _kept quiet_ about it, pretend as if he had never noticed his own feelings…then things would be better. But no, him and his stupid loud mouth…!

"I me-mean that I lo-lo-lo-lo-" Damn it, he was stuttering again! He needed to get this out, he needed to have at least a faint hope of dignity after all this was through! "_I meant that I love you damn it!_" His yell echoed through the room and the house so loud that Yuuko popped her head in through the doorway in surprise, her mouth partially full with a cookie in it.

The silence after that was almost deafening and he was left fidgeting under Doumeki's unblinking, golden stare. Shifting his weight from foot to foot, he fought the urge to flee. He wanted to know Doumeki's answer. He wanted to know it now. Maybe he was too impatient that he couldn't wait, but he wanted to know _now_.

"Watanuki, I—"

The moment Doumeki spoke, any single thread of hope Watanuki had was cut. That tone was the one everyone used when rejecting someone: gentle and soft, trying to be understanding and let someone down easy.

Watanuki didn't even wait to hear the rest. Those two words told him it all. It didn't even matter that Doumeki had used his actual name to his face. He could only finally give in to his instinct to flee and that was just what he did.

** End **  



	6. Chapter 6: Gloomy Sunday

Disclaimer: I have no rights to xxxholic or this Sarah Brightman song

Watanuki slammed the apartment door behind him, locking it frantically, as if Doumeki was running behind him, but there was no one out there. With his back leaning against the door, he merely prayed that the next day at school, Doumeki would act like nothing had happened. It was when his stomach began to growl loudly at him that he realized that he had not eaten anything in the past few days that hadn't come back up.

With a sigh, he trudged through his apartment, but when he reached the kitchen, any interest in food had faded again. He stared at the stove and utensils, lacking the will or energy to do anything. He turned away after a moment and let his feet drag down to his bedroom. But the lack of interest that kept him from making food also kept him from taking the effort to pull out his futon.

Suddenly the silence was too much to bear and had the urge to fill up his apartment with noise, sounds, anything. With that decided, he rummaged around in his closet until he finally found what he was looking for. It was old and dusty, but it still worked.

Bored, he laid down on the floor of his bedroom, plugging in the radio and turning it on. It had belonged to his mother and she had loved it. He had never met someone who had loved music more than her. His eyes fell closed as the music filled his ears, not even having bothered to flip through the channels. The tempo and tune fit his mood just perfectly, much like jazz.

_Sunday is gloomy  
My hours are slumberless  
Dearest the shadows  
I live with are numberless_

The longer he laid on the hard tatami mats, the sleepier he got. He curled up a little, the radio set right at his ear. The song was melancholy and sad, reminding him of…something. The knowledge of what it reminded him of was just on the tip of his mind.

_Little white flowers  
Will never awaken you  
Not where the black coach  
Of sorrow has taken you_

Finally, as he managed to blink open abnormally sleepy eyes, which shouldn't be since he got up not a few hours ago, he remembered what it remind him of. Himself, as Kami. Doumeki, as Xhaiden. It was a sad story, really, much like the song. They had loved each other quite a bit, from the one dream he'd had.

_Angels have no thought  
Of ever returning you  
Would they be angry  
If I thought of joining you  
Gloomy Sunday_

How had they met, really? Sure it was one thing to say the crown had drawn them together because of Xhaiden's wish, but that didn't tell him how they had met. Had it been love at first sight? Had they fought like he and Doumeki did now? And embarrassing as it was to wonder, how did they embrace each other? What did it feel like?

_With shadows I spend it all  
My heart and I have decided  
To end it all  
Soon there'll be flower and prayers  
That are said I know  
But let them not weep  
Let them know  
That I'm glad to go_

His eyes began to fall closed again, the words of the song echoing in his head and making him recall the dream when his other self had just stood there and let the soldiers kill him. He had really had no thought of anything other than Xhaiden in his head. What had Xhaiden done to get that unswerving loyalty from his past self?

_Death is no dream  
For in death I'm caressing you  
With the last breath of my soul  
I'll be blessing you  
Gloomy Sunday_

What had Xhaiden thought when he realized he was going to die? He had gotten very little impression of Xhaiden's personality from the dream. Tears began to gather at the edges of his eyes and he cursed himself when he realized he was jealous of his past self. Why was he still obsessing about what he couldn't have? It was painfully clear that Doumeki didn't love him like he did.

_Dreaming  
I was only dreaming  
I wake and I find you asleep  
In the deep of my heart dear_

Dreaming? The word penetrated into him, drawing him further toward sleep and he didn't know why. All he'd done was sleep the past few days; he should be bursting with energy. Why was he continuing to feel tired? It didn't feel natural at all…

_Darling I hope  
That my dream never haunted you  
My heart is telling you  
How much I wanted you  
Gloomy Sunday_

Watanuki wondered if his obsession with his past self was unhealthy. It was such a sad story, almost like Romeo and Juliet, in a way. What did Doumeki think, knowing what he had been a tyrannical ruler? What he did think, knowing that he had killed people? But it was unlikely that Doumeki would have had the dream he'd had that night they had come back from the graveyard.

And he wouldn't sleep…no, he couldn't…

_Gloomy Sunday…_

Kami stood on the precipice, looking down at the kingdom that lay sprawled at his very feet. His white cloak flapped in the wind and he reached up to hold the hood still so it didn't get blown off. He had noticed that his traveling feet had taken him to a country that had dark skinned, fair-haired people, the exact opposite of himself. His skin was pale, almost abnormally so, and his long, thigh-length black hair was very rare, apparently.

With a sigh of sadness, he picked up his staff and continued on down the hill, the black soles of his boots crunching abnormally loud in the silence. There were no other travelers on the road and he had no companion to talk to, but he was used to it. He fingered the necklace he wore absentmindedly and it never failed to instill in him a sense of peace. He couldn't remember when he actually got the necklace, as there were strange gaps in his memory, but he'd found that people sought it quite a bit for its rarity.

The sound of hoof beats penetrated into his lethargic mindset and he looked up, clutching the pack on his back tighter that held a little food, a few articles of clothing, and all his other worldly possessions. He really didn't want to fight, but if they were robbers, he would have no choice. Though the last time that had been tried, he'd ended up killing two and seriously wounding the other seven brigands.

After that, none had tried it.

Black…a pitch-black horse was cantering down the road, and not only that, it was heading straight for him, as if he were the target. The rider was too far away to see anything about him, but he appeared to be dressed in heavy armor that also seemed to look as if it would double for ceremonial. Five chestnut horses with nondescript, dressed in black, soldiers seemed to serve as a guard.

Resigned, he stopped walking and waited for the riders to reach him. He had lost interest in the world a very long time ago. Nothing penetrated the lackluster, emotional cocoon that he was wrapped in. He no longer cared whether he lived or died. Either was preferable. He didn't set out to let people kill him, but if they did, then so be it. It made no difference.

"Hey, can you lift your hood for a bit?"

Before he had realized it, the riders had reached him and the one on the black steed was already talking. Kami frowned under the hood, a sense of coldness coming to surround him as he disapproved of the easy and somewhat cheerful tone of the man.

"Why?"

The man blinked, as if he had not expected that answer and pulled off his helmet, letting it rest on the pommel of the saddle. There was an amused grin on his face that set Kami even more on edge and his grip on his staff tightened. This man gave the impression that he was not just some dunce. He was probably a high-ranking official in the government or a very, very experienced soldier by how he moved and dressed.

"Well, there's supposed to be a great sorcerer on this road. I don't know his name, but he's supposed to have long black and pale skin. He's a foreigner."

Kami didn't answer right away and merely took a very long stare, taking in the details of this man's face, paying no attention to the silent and attentive guards around him. The man had pale, washed out blond hair, as if he spent too much time in the sun, and a stubble had grown on his chin, making him seem unclean. He seemed the type of person that, if he were captain of a retinue, would spend it with his men alongside the fire than separate himself in a high-handed way.

It was hard to tell with all the armor on, but he also appeared to be muscular, which was not unexpected if he were a soldier. He seemed to be built much like a bull, full of sinewy muscle and steel-strengthened bone. It would take an enormous amount of effort to wound this man when he wasn't protected by his armor.

Kami's very first thought was that he did not want to get involved with this man at all.

He looked away after a moment and muttered in a low, lifeless voice that had become his norm, "I don't know what you're talking about."

As if he weren't satisfied with this answer, the man leapt off his horse with far too much agility for Kami's peace of mind and began to approach him. His sky blue eyes widened in surprise then narrowed in suspicion, lifting his staff in a defensive position. It paused the soldier in surprise, as if he did not expect such a reaction, and a contemplative look filled that strong face.

"You're a tad jumpy, aren't you?"

"Please do not come near me. I really do not want anything to do with you. I'm not the man you're looking for, so please leave me alone."

"Hehhh," the man muttered, as if he were impressed with something. "We'll see about that."

Moving faster than Kami ever thought he could, the man jerked his hood off before he had time to react. For the first time in years, he felt a surge of annoyance and anger, especially at the superior and smug look on the soldier's face.

"Seems like I was right to be suspicious. You're the one we're looking for."

"Just who the hell are you?" he hissed, raising his staff higher and making sure there was a decent amount of distance between them.

"My name is Xhaiden."

There was nothing more said, as if it said it all, and it did. Kami had never seen an image of the king, but he did know the name. King Xhaiden. The man that had slaughtered half the population of the kingdoms on either side of him just to make sure they didn't decide to wage war on him. It hadn't even mattered if there had been women or children there.

Kami had seen the devastation first-hand as he passed through once the "war" was over.

"So you're the current tyrant, ruled not by his principles but a hunk of cursed metal," he retorted.

"Yeah, well," Xhaiden replied, not taking offense to his impolite words even if the soldiers behind him stiffened in anger, "that may have been true a few years ago. I know enough about the curse to not let it control me anymore. Though I do know that I'll probably be assassinated in my sleep sometime."

Kami's eyebrow rose in interest and his staff lowered a few centimeters. What man, what king, would admit what he did in such bald terms? He wasn't hiding from what he did, but he did seem sincerely regretful. How did such a man as him manage to get the evil that was the crown? It didn't go by lineage of any one kingdom. "So what do you want with me?"

"Well the crown will grant me any wish I desire and I wished for a companion. It was just my luck that the companion happened to be a powerful sorcerer, so I think that's a bit of a perk."

The sorcerer frowned in disapproval. "You're saying that the crown brought me here to be your bedmate? I don't think your luck is improving today, since I have no intention of doing so."

Xhaiden laughed. "Come on. Whether we become lovers or not, just come to the castle. It's not like you have anywhere else to go right? I heard all about you from the seer and you're just wandering, right?"

Kami sighed heavily and leaned on his staff. This man's persistence was wearing into him and he suddenly lost interest in the argument. The cocoon of indifference to the world and people rewrapped itself around him and he shrugged. "That's true. I suppose it would make no difference to go with you and be the King's mage. But I warn you. I will not bed with you and I will not use my power to kill people."

"That's fine, that's fine," Xhaiden replied with a pleased grin and reached out to grab his wrist, tugging him toward his horse and helping him up without so much as a word. "Who knows whether we'll become lovers or not, but you're an interesting guy. I like you. What's your name?"

Though it was a bit surprising, Kami let himself be manhandled onto the horse. He hadn't been touched in literally years and it brought back a whole lot of sensations he hadn't remembered before.

"Hey, what's your name?" Xhaiden prompted again as he turned his horse around and began to canter back to the palace in the distance. Even from this far away, Kami could see that it tall and sprawling, made of oppressive black stone. It seemed the perfect place to house the evil of the crown.

What was his name? He honestly didn't know. Whenever someone asked him that, there was only one word in his mind and he assumed that was his name. "Kami," he answered listlessly.

To tell the truth, there were a lot of things, a lot of knowledge, in his head that he didn't understand. He hadn't even known he could fight hand-to-hand combat until a bandit had come too close to him one time, but yet at the very same time he had known down to his very core, every inch of the way to use his magic. Even a sword was not out of place, wielded it like a pro, but there were no callous marks of practice on his hands. They were smooth and untouched.

And he assumed that the knowledge in his mind, filled with terms like Beelzebub, Lucifer, and God were his kingdom's religion. He honestly couldn't remember his country except for a few snippets of himself as a child playing with other faceless children. Wherever he had been from, it had been a place full of brightness and light and beautiful.

He knew he'd been exiled because one memory stood out among them. He was facing five men, all wearing from head to toe white armor, and the feelings that he received from this memory was overwhelming sadness and betrayal. They seemed to glow, but that was probably because the sun in the background shining right in his eyes.

"We're here, so you can snap out of your daze."

Kami blinked in surprise to realize that his introspection, which he did an abnormal amount of length every day, pouring over the same things every moment, had lasted until they'd reached the castle of a good half-hour ride.

As if he were a woman, Xhaiden had already dismounted and was holding out his hand to help him down. Frowning a little, he had no choice but to accept the help, since his behind was sore to the point of pain. It was the first time he'd ridden a horse before and he was regretting every second.

"You're a quiet guy, you know that?" Xhaiden commented as he led the sorcerer into the palace, paying no attention to the somewhat fearful maids and staff that they passed. "I expected you to be more…I don't know, full of life? It's like you're not even alive."

Kami didn't respond to the comment, because he felt it was true. He couldn't remember a time when he did feel alive, except perhaps when he was a child. Maybe there were other times, but there were so many gaps in his memory…

"What am I expected to do here?"

Xhaiden looked at him in surprise. "Nothing really. We're not at war or anything. There's really nothing that needs to be done…" When Kami's stare did not waver, the king sighed in resignation. "Okay, well, there is just this one little thing I need you to do, but that's it. And it doesn't involve killing any people."

"What is it?"

"I need you to destroy this tower that's being built on our border. It's obviously being made for military purposes and if we just get rid of it before it's finished, then it becomes clear that there will be no war…"

He tuned the king out after a moment, focusing more on the feeling of evil magic that was assaulting his senses the longer he walked in this corridor. It wasn't until they'd passed by a heavily guarded door that he realized where it was coming from. The crown had to be in that room then. There was no way to mistake the intent and evil of a curse like that!

"Are you listening, Kami? Hey!"

"I am," he replied, his tone still lifeless. Yes, the feeling of interest and life in him when they'd first met had been an aberration. It wouldn't happen again, obviously. The king was interesting, but not enough to hold his attention for more than a few moments.

"When—"

"Now," Kami interrupted, taking note of the surprise in Xhaiden's emerald green eyes. His steps didn't falter and he swerved in his path to a nearby veranda. So long as he knew which direction to face, it would be simple.

"Hey, you don't have to do this right now," Xhaiden told him, obviously disconcerted with Kami's lackluster and to the point attitude.

"Why put it off when I can do it now?"

And that was the way it was in the palace from that moment on.

****

Arms slipped around his waist smoothly and Kami almost ended up cutting the flower in half in surprise. He glanced over his shoulder in annoyance and Xhaiden merely gave him a boyish grin. Truthfully, when he grinned like that, Kami always had a hard time scolding him since he looked so youthfully handsome.

Four months had passed since he had come to stay in the palace and he found that despite the fact that at every opportunity he turned down Xhaiden's attempts to make them lovers, everyone that lived there thought he was the king's concubine and feared him. Even when he would make it clear in public among others, spurning Xhaiden's affections, they still assumed so. It didn't help that his exotic looks and build were enough to make them nervous, as they did not take well to foreigners apparently, but after he had destroyed the tower on Xhaiden's request on his first day there, not many people would even dare to be around him. Even the maids that were supposed to attend to him were jittery and would barely stay five minutes in his presence.

"Do let go, My Lord," he told the powerfully built man, lacing coldness in his very tone. Despite how frigid his attitude was toward this man, it never seemed to faze him and he kept persistently visiting his wing of the palace.

"Ever since you came here, you've called me My Lord. Can't you just call me Xhaiden?"

Kami smacked that blonde head roundly with the butt of his shears when he felt the king's lips teasingly kissing his neck. "It is that kind of action that makes everyone think that I am your concubine," he retorted when Xhaiden pulled away and rubbed his head with a plaintive look on his face. "And secondly, that is what you are. I have no incentive to call you by your given name. Besides that, it would only make trouble for me if I did with the other ministers and staff. It would be seen as if I were overstepping my bounds and I do not want to have to defend myself against a rapist or worse."

"I would kill any man that so much as laid a hand on you."

The sorcerer blinked in surprise and tried not to flush in confusion at that deadly serious tone that the king used. Normally, Xhaiden was so light-hearted and upbeat, like he was no more than twenty-two, unlike his thirty-three years. It was very rare for Kami to hear such a determined statement. Whenever such a serious tone came, whenever he would talk about Kami as if he were the most precious thing to him, it sent weird thrills through his stomach.

He set the shears down and straightened his kimono in what he hoped was a casual manner. Xhaiden had told him that he would give him whatever he asked and to test it, Kami had pulled out his single, old and somewhat tattered kimono from his pack. It was a simple pattern and simple design and said he had wanted more. Shockingly enough, the very next day a tailor was brought in and he found that half his wardrobe consisted of silken and velvet and softest cotton kimonos, all in beautiful colors and patterns.

Xhaiden never failed to go all out on any request that he made, whether it was for food, clothing, or anything. It was painfully obvious to even him that the king was making every effort to woo him.

What on earth did Xhaiden like about him anyway?!

Xhaiden dropped down to lay on Kami's bed, his green eyes ever watchful of every move the man made. "Honestly speaking, you're the only one I can ever relax with," Xhaiden commented, the dangerous and deadly tone of his voice gone back to the light-hearted and easy-going voice he usually had. "Which is nothing bad, but sometimes I find myself really wishing you'd fall in love with me sooner."

Kami kept his back to the king, staring out the window he stood in front of, though he wasn't really looking at anything. Xhaiden had never made his feelings a secret. At least once every time they met, he would say he loved him. And even when Kami had taken to confining himself in his own wing of the palace and rooms, he would go out of his way to visit, just so that a single day didn't go by that they didn't meet.

"Why do you stay in here so much, anyway? You're free to anywhere in the palace and go to the town. I would really hope you'd come back, but I'd never force you to stay here."

"I stay here because it is peaceful here," Kami responded, used to this question. "People in here fear me and dislike me because of how look and my power. I don't like to be surrounded by distrustful gazes every hour of the day."

This time, he wasn't surprised when Xhaiden sat up and shifted to sit on the edge of the bed, an arm looping around Kami's waist and dragging him close to that muscular body. Xhaiden would never force him, he knew, but he also knew just how much the king wanted him. "Well, I trust you implicitly. You're the only one I can in this whole palace. I mean, if I want to live, I have to suspect everyone of being an assassin sent to kill me. That crown has been trying to off me for years, ever since I learned how to resist it."

Though his hand shook a little, Kami ran his fingers through Xhaiden's shoulder-length, unkempt blonde hair. He couldn't deny that in the past four months, Xhaiden had become dear to him. His persistence despite Kami's apathy and cold shoulders had finally had their success, it seemed. But he was not sure he could give Xhaiden what he wanted. Was there enough emotion in the lifeless shell of his body to give Xhaiden the love he clearly craved?

Xhaiden didn't say anything more after that, merely let his head bury itself Kami's side and Kami pretended not to see just how _tired_ the king looked, how weak and defenseless he was. He was the only one that Xhaiden would ever let see him like this. _Stupid idiot,_ he thought fondly. _You trust me too much. Didn't it ever occur to you that I could be the assassin the crown wants to use to kill you?_

But that was Xhaiden for you.

"Since you're here, you should take a nap or something," Kami told him awkwardly, attempting to pull himself away when the comfort and enjoyment he was taking from their atmosphere made him uncomfortable.

"Only if you join me," Xhaiden muttered and gave him a childish grin.

This was the Xhaiden he knew that had assaulted the listless interest he'd had in the world and won. This was the Xhaiden who would stop at nothing to woo the man he had fallen in love with. He let out a sigh of resignation he did not feel and said, "Oh very well."

He really was unable to say no to this man.

****

It was only two weeks after that when it happened.

Kami had finally ventured out of his wing of the palace after a three-week voluntary confinement, mostly because finally the flower of choice that he had been raising for so long had finally bloomed. He didn't know why he had a childish, excited urge to rush to show Xhaiden, but he did. He wanted to give it to him. It was almost much like what had happened to himself. Xhaiden had spent months sowing and cultivating the flower of Kami's emotions, starting with the seed of when they'd first met. It was something like a tribute.

For only the second time since he'd been there, Kami entered the throne room. It was a busy day in the life of a government official, since almost every single minister was there, sitting before the king as they passed around ideas and voted on laws and rules. The moment he took a step inside, all sound stopped and all eyes trained on him. And like the urge that had drove him to leave his rooms, he had the juvenile impulse to turn and run like a scared child back to the safety of his palace wing.

"Kami!"

Xhaiden's tone was filled with pleased surprise. Kami watched as the joy of his presence of having sought him out filled his face and it was only thanks to the years of apathy and lack of interest in people that he was able to keep his face carefully controlled amid the hostile and shocked stares of the people in the room, filled not only with ministers but soldiers and other dignitaries of men and women alike.

He forced his feet to start the path toward the throne. If he really were Xhaiden's concubine or lover, he should have confidence to interrupt any meeting and stride with pride to the side of the king, but he wasn't. He had held out, had spurned all advances, even when time had finally told him that he really did love this man and should have agreed.

Kami watched with hawk-like piercing sky blue eyes as Xhaiden was so excited to see him that he stood up, missing the sharp motion of a knife from behind. "_Xhaiden, look out!_"

It was the only time Kami had ever uttered Xhaiden's name and it was almost as if he could see everything in slow motion. Xhaiden turning to see the assassin behind him, aiming for his heart; the ministers too frightened to even move and everyone frozen to the spot; the petals of the flower that he had carefully raised flying apart as he dropped it in his rush to his king. For Xhaiden truly had become his king.

Though everything was over and done with in seconds, it felt like an eternity. Maybe it was because Xhaiden had already started turning when the dagger came down or because Kami managed to jostle him a bit, but the steel penetrated his left shoulder instead of his heart.

It was the first time that Kami had killed, at least in a while. He had moved so quickly like a striking snake that it had taken less than five seconds to snatch the dagger embedded in Xhaiden's shoulder and slice the neck of the assassin before he could even move. Time seemed to slow down again as watched the blood spill from that slashed artery and a memory once again assaulted him.

He was wearing heavy white armor and he was glowing white. There were two bloody long swords in either of his hands and at the corner of his eye, he could swear there were wings…No, that had to be an illusion, a trick of the light. In front of him, the beautiful landscape of his childhood was smeared with blood and the stench of death filled his nostrils so much that he would have vomited if he'd possessed any kind of horror. Strangely enough, he felt a sense of satisfaction and not one whit of guilt at the hoards of bodies in front of him. Somewhere to his left was another person wearing white armor like himself and carrying a broadsword…

"-mi…_Kami!!_"

Kami jerked a little, drawn out of the memory, and looked down at Xhaiden, lying in a pool of his own blood and his face…face looking almost frightened as he stared up at the sorcerer. Slowly, his own eyes traveled down to the dagger clutched in his hand, his fist covered in the blood that had spurted from the wound. In surprise, he lifted up his other hand touch his face and it came away with spots of blood that had been splattered on him from the dead assassin.

The dagger fell from listless fingers and he could only watch when slowly the strange look on Xhaiden's face faded into pain and he clutched his wounded shoulder. Several soldiers had apparently shaken off their shock and were carrying the king out of the room and into the bedroom. Women were crying and panicking and several people were yelling for a doctor.

Amid it all, Kami stood like a still and silent island, wondering just what it was that he had done.

****

"My Lord?" Kami muttered, peering through a crack of the door he opened. It was the first time he'd ever gone to Xhaiden's room and he was nervous, an emotion that he couldn't ever recall feeling before. It wasn't a frightened nervous, but a strange and worried anticipation nervous.

"Kami?"

Urged on by the surprised yet welcoming tone of the king, Kami slid like an eel through the small opening between the double doors that he could and closed it silently behind him. Why did he feel so nervous and shy? He had only come to see how Xhaiden was doing.

Xhaiden was propped up slightly with mounds of pillows beneath his back and his upper half was bare of cloth, showing the bandages that wrapped around his left shoulder and stomach. The expression on his face, while slightly surprised, was still that same boyish happiness he was used to, but Kami could not forget the almost frightened look that had once touched Xhaiden's face three hours ago.

Once the shock had worn off, Kami had all but fled the throne room. He had actually ordered instead of asked the maid to draw a bath. He had had to get the blood off. Normally, he did not mind blood so much. It bothered him a little, usually, but it did not send him into the panic he had felt then. He had scrubbed his pale skin to a raw pink color until he'd felt clean again. Something about the image he'd seen in his head filled him sadness, betrayal, and horror. It had taken an hour to pick out a kimono that had made him feel safe and like himself. He hadn't even tied his hair back this time before he'd finally worked up the courage to go see Xhaiden, making sure there was no trace of blood visible.

It was okay for others to be afraid of him, but never Xhaiden. If Xhaiden was ever afraid…he didn't think he could handle it.

"What are you doing here?" Xhaiden chuckled. "You don't have to huddle by the door, come in. I obviously can't do anything to you here, even if I was going to. You said my name for the first time today."

How could he focus on such a stupid thing after what had happened and the expression on his face before? "I wanted to see how you were," he answered finally, almost shyly making his way to the king's beside and hesitantly sitting down on the edge of the bed, close enough that Xhaiden could touch him without straining his wound if he wanted.

"What were you doing in there anyway? It was so rare to ever see you leave your rooms, much less seek me out."

Then Kami remembered the flower that he had forgotten in his panic and smiled bitterly. "This is what I get for leaving. Had I not shown up, you would not have been distracted and would have noticed the assassin. You wouldn't have been hurt at all." Nothing good had come of leaving his room.

As if aware of his depressing turn of his thoughts, Xhaiden reached out to run his fingers ever so gently against the softness of Kami's cheek. "Don't say that. I can't tell you how happy I was that you did that."

"I wanted to show you a strain of a flower that I had made myself. It finally bloomed today."

"So that's what you've been doing the past four months you've been here. I never knew you liked gardening to _that_ extent."

"It calms me," Kami admitted. He watched as Xhaiden's hand reached out and played with his fingers, but said nothing. He obviously had something he wanted to talk about, by the pensive look on that worn face.

"You looked so different today in the throne room when you killed that man. You didn't even look like you." Their eyes met, but there was no fear in the king's eyes. "What happened to you in the past, Kami? The look on your face was merciless. You had no expression, even worse than usual here. It was like you were larger than life, like you should be holding a holy sword or something. I didn't even think you were my Kami anymore. I've seen that expression only once before in my life. It means you don't care about death at all. It's nothing more than an unknown element that you've never seen happen before and can't possibly happen to you. I didn't know you anymore for that split second. Your eyes were so far away, so fathomless...and almost cruel in a way."

"Cruel?" he whispered, afraid to hear more.

"Yeah. There was no pity, there was no pain, there was no mercy. There was nothing. The word detachment doesn't even begin to come close." Xhaiden paused. "Tell me?"

Kami chuckled, a little despairingly. "I'm afraid there's nothing to tell. I think I might have hit my head at one point several years ago because for the longest time, I don't know what happened in the past. Just snatches of confusion in my head. There are huge gaps in my memory. But I promise you that I'm still me. That won't change."

"Then I guess I don't need to worry." Finally a smile touched the king's lips and Kami grew nervous and silent all over again.

"My Lord?"

"And you still won't call me Xhaiden," the king sighed with a sad smile. "Oh well. What is it?"

Even though his heart was pounding in his chest, a feeling he'd never had before, Kami pulled down the sheet of the bed to reveal the loose pants that Xhaiden had been changed into after he'd been bandaged. Screwing up all his courage, he gently moved to straddle the king.

"Oi, oi! Kami, what are you doing?!" His hands had already gone to the tie of his kimono before Xhaiden managed to hold them still. Their eyes met and he saw shock most notably on that hard, strong face.

"What?"

"What do you mean, what?!" retorted the man beneath him, sounding a tad panicky. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I am making the rumors of me being your concubine true. Please let go of my hands so I can undress."

The shocked look faded away and it was the first time that Kami saw Xhaiden looking so achingly sad. Xhaiden twined their fingers together gently, letting his thumb run soothingly over Kami's knuckles.

"No, Kami. It has no meaning unless you, yourself, want this as much as I do. I want you to love me. That's why I never ordered or forced myself on you. I want an emotional relationship with you, before physical. It is because I value you so much. To hurt you would only hurt me twice as worse."

Kami brought up their combined hands, kissing those calloused fingers softly. "But I do love you, My Lord. I have for a while now, but I refused because I feared that you only wanted the chase and not the person at the end of the road. Yet when I thought I'd lose you, I realized that even if it that were true, I'd rather have spent at least one night with you than never know your touch."

Perhaps it was because Xhaiden finally lost his restraint; maybe it was because Xhaiden trusted that Kami knew what he wanted and wasn't going to ask twice. Either way, the king gently cupped Kami's neck and pulled him down for their very first kiss. It was steamy and full of restrained passion. Xhaiden's tongue darted in and out of Kami's mouth quickly, tasting every inch that he could reach.

When it ended and Kami could think around the faint dizziness, he flushed a little. "It's my first time," he muttered, not sure what he should do.

"With a man?"

"With anyone."

Somehow the knowledge made Xhaiden chuckle and Kami sent him an unamused glare. "A virgin in all things and you sought to seduce me. I am shamed…"

"Keep that up and I'll remember that you have a shoulder wound," he warned and the threat was enough to stifle the budding laughter of the king. Apparently the last thing the man wanted was for Kami to take off back to his room and he'd have to wait a month or so to heal before taking advantage of the sorcerer's feelings.

After that though the time for talk was over. For all the fact that Kami was a virgin, it became clear that Xhaiden was _not_. Their kisses were painfully sweet and fierce; every caress sent a trail of fire down Kami's spine. And those hands weren't idle. They had already slid from his neck to his shoulders, pushing off the top of the sorcerer's kimono to pool at his slim, delightfully sleek waist.

"You are so beautiful. I've wanted you the moment I saw you."

Xhaiden's husky whisper penetrated his ear and it like a caress itself, causing him to shiver. Already he could feel the bulge of the king's arousal pressing against his thigh and knowing nothing more than to remove Xhaiden's pants, his own hands hesitantly skimmed down over that muscled stomach. There was a faint hiss drawn from Xhaiden's clenched teeth when his hand brushed up against the man's arousal and he looked up in concern.

"Are you in pain, my lord? Do you wish me to stop?"

"Stop talking so formal. And this kind of pain is good. If you stop, though, I'll feel terrible."

With a blush, Kami continued, pushing down Xhaiden's pants to his knees. It was embarrassing to say, but he had no choice. "What…what do I do now?"

There was a gentle chuckle and he'd never seen the king's eyes so warm and full of love than he did now. "Nothing. Let me take care of the rest." Those skillful hands invaded underneath his kimono and gripped his own budding arousal tightly. A gasp was torn from his throat and he was so focused on what Xhaiden was doing to the front that he didn't notice the back until a finger pressed ever so gently into his behind.

"What the…hell…are you…doing?" Kami demanded, but to his chagrin, he noticed that his words got progressively breathier the more that the king's finger moved and explored his insides.

"It's all right, Kami," Xhaiden soothed, leaving a trail of kisses down the sorcerer's smooth neck without leaning up so he didn't reopen his shoulder wound.

And that was how it went, with Xhaiden softly teaching Kami what to know, what to do. Sometimes Kami felt guilty about taking advantage of Xhaiden's wound to do this, but really…he was afraid, whether he'd admit it to the king or not. This way, since Xhaiden was bound by his bandages that kept him still on the bed, Kami was in some measure of control. He feared the night that Xhaiden was well. Xhaiden was very well built, so much so that next to him, Kami looked almost frail. With the wound, Xhaiden's force and antics were limited. When he was well…

It seemed like an eternity before Xhaiden entered him and when he did, Kami could not contain his cry of delight. He'd never imagined that there could be such physical pleasure, even if a pain that eventually faded away tinted it. It seemed impossible for him to take deep breaths, as every time he tried, he would end up gasping when Xhaiden would thrust upward.

"Your heat feels so good," the king muttered through gritted teeth, hands gripping Kami's waist tightly in response to the pleasure. "It's all the more special that I'm your first."

Kami couldn't say that Xhaiden was his first and his last lover, but he did think it. He wanted to smack the man for saying such embarrassing things, but his arousal only twitched harder as they were also erotic words. The sorcerer was so lost in the warm and happy world that existed only between Xhaiden and himself that he didn't even hear the knocking on the door.

Only later would Kami remember that before Xhaiden could yell at whoever it was go away, his scream of pleasure echoed first and sent whoever it was scurrying off with red ears and cheeks.

****

"Forgive me, My Lord. I opened your wound…"

Kami sat up, noticing the faint splotch of red among the white of the bandages on the king's shoulder. Xhaiden opened his eyes, blinking them tiredly and glanced down, as if he hadn't even noticed after their lovemaking.

Flushing, the slimmer man was about to leave the bed when the king's good arm slipped around his waist and kept him in the bed. "Where do you think you're going?"

His blush deepening, Kami looked at the door. "I'm going back to my room. Isn't that what a concubine is supposed to do? Pleasure and then leave?"

"You're _not_ a concubine, you're my lover. And…" Xhaiden looked away, "I have something to tell you."

Curiously, Kami pushed his long hair from his face and looked down at the king, who seemed be looking awkward and unhappy. Why on earth was he unhappy after what they had just done? "What is it?"

"You know how much I love you, right?"

"Yes." Kami smiled a little. Xhaiden was the only one who ever saw his smiles and the king hadn't taken them for granted. "I can feel it every look you give me."

"Then I hope you can understand that even though I have to get married to make an heir, I can't love her. Please understand that I will only be with her physically to make an child."

Kami tried to hide his shock and hurt, but Xhaiden must have seen it because he clutched the smaller man so tightly to him as if he feared that if he didn't, he would run and he'd never see him again. It was a foolish thing to expect; Kami could never leave Xhaiden, but that did not stop him from letting two hot tears go down his cheeks, even as said, "That isn't right. If you marry, you should be faithful to her."

"No! I have no choice to have an heir. If I don't, civil war will break out when I die and tear the kingdom apart. But I will not shun you. I can't. I won't lose what have just finally gotten. Please. If you won't let me be with you fully, emotionally and physically, it'll kill me."

"I can deny you nothing, My Lord."

"Damn it, Kami. You _can_ be selfish every once in a while!"

"Then…" Kami hesitated. "Just promise me that you will always love me."

"I will. I swear to god that I will."

And even while the word god rang in him, he cried. Xhaiden could only hold him tightly.

_Darling I hope  
That my dream never haunted you  
My heart is telling you  
How much I wanted you  
Gloomy Sunday_

Watanuki jerked awake and covered his face with his hands as he breathed in deep breaths. When he had calmed himself, he blinked, looking at the radio still playing the song he had fallen asleep to. Had he only been asleep for a few minutes? It felt like years…He left a suspicious glare at the radio and unplugged it, cutting off the woman's song instantly and hearing only silence.

Had he dreamed about all that because he had been wondering about his past life? And what was with the images in Kami's head? It was almost like he was a…no, it wasn't possible. Even if the images looked a little holy, it wasn't possible. He wasn't ready to accept that any religion could play a part in his life or the supernatural that surrounded him.

Fearing to sleep again, he stood and decided that even if he didn't want to eat, he had to. Even if he had no energy to cook, he had to do it. Even as the tears fell into his tea and food, he just focused on taking one breath at a time.

** End **


	7. Chapter 7: Sweet Dreams

Watanuki was actually grateful for his wound for once. Because of it, he couldn't make Doumeki's lunch, which he had no reason to see him. True, it also meant that he didn't have anything to eat, but that was preferable than spend a lunch in awkward silence with the archer.

He had had no idea that his life would turn upside the moment he stepped in that damn graveyard. Thanks to this whole ordeal, he'd nearly died, confessed his feelings, and now the song he'd listened to on the radio was stuck in his head. He was going to take that up with Yuuko when he got to work because he could have sworn the song had ended when he'd finally fell asleep, but it had been near the middle of the song when he'd woken up.

"Here you are, Watanuki-kun."

The bespectacled boy turned around in surprise, the wind stronger on the roof and blowing Himawari's hair around her in a very pretty way. He could see the concern in her eyes, especially since he had only explained the bare minimum of what had happened when he'd left school because of his injury.

"Himawari-chan, shouldn't you be at lunch?"

She didn't say anything at first, merely moved up to stand beside him at the fence that edged the roof and looked down. At this vantage point, there were no details that you could see. Here, you could see the landscape stretch below you like an unending carpet. Like looking at the "big picture" and not seeing the smaller details, such as people, animals, and objects.

"Doumeki-kun is at the archery range. He went there the moment lunch was announced. He seems…out of sorts today. I don't know if I can say upset, but…"

Watanuki could only listen, his dark sapphire eyes going unfocused as he concentrated only on the sound of her voice and not really looking at anything. With the strong wind, he was getting chilled, but it didn't matter. Up here, he felt peace from his emotions, even if for only a few minutes.

"Can we talk, Watanuki-kun?"

"Eh?" Watanuki blinked and looked at her serious tone. Seeing her desperate expression, he nodded without thought. She looked like she really needed an outlet for her thoughts and if just listening to her would help her, he'd be fine with that.

"Doumeki-kun is a great guy, isn't he? He's really strong and nice. He's good looking and kind. Plus he can do archery, don't you think that's cool?" Watanuki tilted his head, watching her as she stared with an abnormal amount of concentration at the ground below. "I think I've fallen in love with him."

The words refused to let their meaning sink in his mind for a moment, too stunned to do anything except realize that his heart had stopped beating. She had no way of knowing his feelings; she had no way to know that this conversation could only bring Watanuki pain.

"I don't think it could happen," she continued bitterly, "since I'm like this, but Doumeki-kun's mere presence makes my heart race. I can't tell him, I can't be with anyone with how I am, but I just had to talk to someone about this otherwise I felt like I'd scream. I really do love him."

Watanuki didn't notice the tear that had slipped from his eye until Himawari finally looked up and asked him what was wrong. In surprise, he lifted his hand and touched his wet cheek in a bemused way before he finally broke down, slumping to sit on the ground and weep into his arms. Really, it was ironic. Doumeki really was unreachable by the both of them.

"What's the matter, Watanuki-kun? What did I say? I'm sorry I burdened you with this, but you and Doumeki-kun are the only friends I have."

No matter how she tried to comfort him, it did nothing. She had no idea how she had wounded him with her confession and that was a small mercy. He really didn't want to have to bear any more knowledge that she had caused someone she cared about harm.

It took all lunch period before he could control himself again and if his eyes were slightly red when he went back to the classroom, there was no one there to notice. If Doumeki was waiting for him to walk home, he didn't know, as he had sped out of the school faster than he had ever done before. He didn't want to meet the archer, because he had no doubt that Doumeki would see his red-rimmed eyes and bug him about what the reason was. His feelings weren't returned and the last thing he wanted to do was expose his delicate emotions more than necessary.

"You're here fast today, Watanuki," Yuuko commented when he was pulling on his apron. He didn't answer her, but when she still stayed in the doorway without a word, he figured now was a good time to ask and it would take his mind off other matters.

"Yuuko-san, who was Kami? I can't think of him as myself a long time ago and I had a dream the other day when I went back to my apartment. About how Kami and the king met and about how they lived and about," He flushed a little, "their first time."

"Well, it's best you don't think of him of yourself a long time ago anyway," she commented, lifting her pipe to her lips and turning back to slink onto her sofa again. "After all, no matter what, it's the past and it's gone and done. It's good to know what happened there sometimes, but it's not good to let it rule the present or the future."

Watanuki followed her into the room and knelt on the floor, wishing he could just prod her to answer what he really wanted to know, but after all this time, he knew very well that until she would go at her own pace. She would get there in her own time and no amount of bugging would get her there faster.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Well…Kami didn't seem to have all of his memories and he would have flashes in his head every so often about himself in white armor and glowing…what was all that?"

"Well if you really want to know," she told him and dumped some extra ashes in a tray next to her from her pipe. This careless, relaxed Yuuko was the Dimensional Witch he knew and he didn't realize how comforting and calming it was when she was like this until he'd seen her when she was down to business. "I guess you're ready to hear it. You might not like it and it may bother you, but it's not like it'll upset your whole world if you know."

She paused and he clenched his fists on his lap in response. This must be a huge revelation and part of him really questioned if he was ready for it. Who knew if his world would be upset by the knowledge? What if it was? Could he recover? Was it big enough news that she wouldn't have told it to him five months or even two months ago?

"Kami was an archangel that was cast out of heaven. There were seven in total, I believe. One of them was Lucifer, who started a war with heaven out of pride. So the remaining six archangels went to battle. These angels were the most powerful next to god and with their power they literally decimated Lucifer's army. Then Lucifer was cast out and things were supposed to have gone back to normal."

Watanuki swallowed thickly, feeling a tad numb. He had once been an archangel?! He wasn't ready for this at all! He didn't want to think that his life was ruled by religion. He'd never been a religious person, really, unlike Doumeki. The flash of Doumeki's image in his head sent pangs of pain through him.

"That's okay, you don't—"

But apparently Yuuko had decided that he was ready to know. "Truth to tell, all was not good. About a few months after the war had ended, all the archangels got together, had a talk with god, and cast out another of their members. His name was Zachariel and while he was one of the best fighters, he had no concept mercy. He didn't know pain, compassion, pity, love, or even hate. Even the idea of death was unknown to this angel, something that happened far away and had no bearing on him. Since they thought he didn't understand the gravity of the situation, that he couldn't be an angel if he didn't have the compassion to understand mortals, they cast him out.

"Frankly, it was only supposed to be temporary. They messed with his memories a little, erasing what they could of his memory as an archangel and sent him on his way. That was Kami. He traveled for years and years under the watchful eyes of the other archangels, who kept hoping that he would come to understand and feel all the emotions he lacked so they could bring him back. The archangels were much like a family, you see. Zachariel was the ultimate soldier, if you want to put it that way and while they could suppress his memories of what he was, they couldn't with his abilities. For a long, long time Kami was relegated to wandering the earth. He spent two hundred years before he met King Xhaiden and every time when Zachariel as Kami began to wonder about such things as his age and why he was different, the archangels, who had permission from god, touched up his memories once again."

Yuuko paused to give him a breather so he could absorb the information, but it stubbornly refused to seat the ideas in his mind. He was an archangel. There was no way that Yuuko would lie about this. This wasn't possible. He was a killing machine? He was an angel that had no concept of emotions? Was this how Doumeki felt when he'd found out what he'd done in his past life? This incomprehensible feeling that this knowledge was all a dream and it was so outside the realm of possibility that it sounded convincing?

"It was when Kami met King Xhaiden that the archangels took notice of the crown. While the crown was powerful enough for destruction, it was something that mortals had made and heaven had not seen fit to intervene and destroy it. As you know, despite Xhaiden's persistence, the archangels despaired that Kami would ever know any emotion, much less love. Therefore when Kami actually did fall in love with Xhaiden, they were shocked. They were happy, but also upset. Now Kami knew emotions and had them awoken in him, but how could they, in all conscious tear away the happiness of their brother angel?

"The decision was taken out of their hands by Kami himself. The moment that Xhaiden and he made love for the first time, Kami was no longer pure and could not return to heaven. Even the archangels knew that eventually that Xhaiden was going to be killed by the crown. They had felt guilty for casting Kami out of heaven so many years ago, especially when Kami was like a child and could not understand what he had done wrong. Especially since he really had done nothing wrong."

"Wait, wait, _wait_," he interrupted frantically and Yuuko finally looked at him with questioning eyes. "This isn't making any sense, Yuuko-san!"

"It does, you just don't want to face it," she retorted back lazily. "Now, to continue. Even if he could no longer enter heaven, Kami still had an abnormally long life and he was still what you might call immortal in a way. The rebellion soldiers couldn't have killed him for example. So as their apology gift, they pleaded with god to take away that immortality of Kami's so that he could die with Xhaiden, which was clearly a wish straight down to his soul. And in the end, Kami died without ever knowing what he really was. It's really kind of a sad story, if you think about it. It also explains how easy it was for Kami to seal the crown."

"Does…does this mean that…the reason I have this power…"

Yuuko tilted her head and thought about it longer that he thought she needed to. "Yes and no. You would have had a higher sixth sense than most, but would have been normal if you hadn't been an archangel in the past life. It's because of what your soul was that you have the abnormal strength of power. Make no mistake, Watanuki. You are powerful, just completely untrained in using it. Your power isn't limited to just _seeing_ spirits. Oh, you'd probably never be able to exorcise them, a limit of your current body, but you can do other magic if you were trained."

"I don't want to be trained!" he shrieked, still finding it hard to deal with everything that had happened in the past few days. He wished he'd never asked. He was tempted to tape his mouth shut. First he had confessed to Doumeki when he shouldn't have; now he asked something that he shouldn't have. Why did he ask anyway?! It's not like it would have made a difference in his present life.

"Honestly, how did Xhaiden ever win Kami?" he hissed in anger, feeling something close to resentment of his other life. How lucky he'd been, really. The man who loved him had spent all he could to get him. He never had to worry that his love wouldn't be returned. He had never known unrequited love like he did now.

"Are you asking so you know can try to win Doumeki-kun?"

Watanuki flushed red and stood up, making abortive gestures to start his cleaning duties, though he had no interest in it. His mind was still racing; putting the pieces together of a puzzle had been unable to see fully because he had been lacking crucial knowledge. "Of course not! It's not like I'm Xhaiden, Yuuko-san! Xhaiden acted like an idiot who was too easy going, but people still liked him. He had that kind of charm. People were drawn to him despite that. He was tough and powerful too. I'm nothing like that. If I tried to do what he did, I'd just make an even more awkward situation than there is now."

"You really don't give yourself enough credit, Watanuki," she told him, but he pretended he didn't hear. Because nothing would change if he did.

****

For the first time in his life, Doumeki found himself cursing the fact that he had gotten pulled into the supernatural world. Normally, he didn't mind it. After all, Watanuki was there and he always kept up the interest. It was always fun around Watanuki because you never knew what he'd do next. The anticipation was half the fun.

But lately, things had been getting complicated. First he'd found out he'd been a tyrannical ruler, in love with Watanuki's former self, then he found out that Watanuki's present self was in love with him, and now that damn uncomfortable dream last night. He had gone straight to the archery range at lunch because he hadn't really wanted to see Watanuki until he'd gotten things settled in himself first.

Honestly, he wasn't in love with Watanuki…was he? He could feel nothing but annoyance at his previous self. If King Xhaiden was somehow giving him these dreams, he needed to stop immediately. Just because that was then didn't mean it was going to happen. It couldn't possibly be that he was having these dreams because he was in love with Watanuki.

He liked Watanuki, but not in that way. Sure Watanuki was fun to tease. Sure he thought he was a great cook. Sure he kept protecting Watanuki at the risk of bodily injury. It was true that he liked to rile up the boy so he could see the sparks of life in those deep, pretty blue eyes. And yes, he'd been really angry with Watanuki for sacrificing his eye for him. But none of this meant he was _in love_ with him, right?

His mother had once told him that one day he would find someone he would love when he brought with a careless and uncaring manner all the Valentines Day chocolates he got. Someone that would make his heart beat fast. Someone he would look forward to seeing the next day. Someone he would seek to always be at the side of.

It was true that some, _some_ of those things applied to Watanuki, but with the supernatural always being there, how could he tell that the heart racing was not just adrenaline? It was so hard to tell. And even if it was, why did Watanuki love him? Watanuki was so full of life and antics, always running and always everywhere, that being with someone as placid as him didn't seem right. He'd be more suited to dating Xhaiden, his past existence.

His hands tightened on his broom involuntarily with irritation. No, he was not in love with Watanuki. The idea of Watanuki with someone like his past self did not make him feel jealous. It didn't bother him if Watanuki was dating someone other than himself. Not at all.

Doumeki stared at the ground after a few minutes, trying very hard to convince himself of the facts. To not put the pieces together. No, all these things that happened to him and his emotions around Watanuki were just separate things with no connection, just coincidence.

_"There are no coincidences in this world, only hitsuzen."_

…Aw damn.

** End **


	8. Sidestory: Because The Night

When Kami met Xhaiden's bride to be three weeks after Xhaiden and he had made love for the first time, it was hate on sight, at least on her part. It wasn't until she had swept away, being as regal as she could about it, that he found out why.

Apparently Xhaiden had told her during the meeting her parents had set up for them that if they married, he wouldn't be spending much time in the same bed together.

Kami had been informed of every possible queen by Xhaiden and most, when told bluntly that his love was a man but he had to marry for a child, had turned away immediately. But this woman was different. She was a princess to start with and had a great deal of pride.

He honestly didn't care either way about her, but he would be lying if he said the fact that Xhaiden would be marrying didn't bother him. Xhaiden had done all he could to make him feel better, but that did not change the fundamental fact. Perhaps it was because he feared that when the wedding night came, he would be forgotten entirely after that. He was supposed to be 'lover' not 'concubine'. Xhaiden had made an overwhelming distinction between the two.

The sorcerer didn't speak to the princess, future queen, until several days later when she purposely sought him out. It was perhaps the most shocking thing he'd ever seen in his life, and in many of the staffs' lives when she publicly stopped him and made her declaration.

"I will not accept your relationship with the King. Once he marries me, I will prove that he will no longer need you, a _man_."

All eyes in the hallway swiveled to him, as if this were some sort of highly anticipated duel. Kami pursed his lips a little as she stared at him, a slight smug smile on her lips, thinking that he couldn't say a comeback. He really honestly had no feeling for either way, but he had learned that over the years, instinct took over when someone insulted him.

"You would have to be of a very high level in bed to take the King from my own, the level of a courtesan. For someone whose parents have claimed loudly several times that you are pure and virgin as snow, I would think that would be impossible."

The implication asking if she had lifted her skirts before ran in the silence and it was as if someone sucked out all the air. Her back stiffened and if she were a cat, he knew her fur would be standing on end. His cold, pale blue eyes watched her placidly as she let her anger get the better of her. Just proved how unskilled she was, as everyone knew who lost their temper first lost the argument.

"You…you…you filthy maggot! You are nothing but a commoner, and a man at that! That in itself is filthy."

"Then you are saying that the King is filthy," he countered smoothly and watched as she suddenly paled, "for it was the King that spent months wooing me. Are you calling your liege Lord, future husband, filthy?"

If it was possible for such a tanned woman to turn white, then that was what he saw. She had insulted someone that even the people in the castle, who knew how mild mannered Xhaiden really was, were terrified of. It did not help that after the first assassination attempt when Kami had killed the assassin, that it was clear where the sorcerer's loyalties and who he would defend with his life. No one dared insult Xhaiden in front of him after that, since they did not want to risk his wrath.

"My Lady, you agreed to this marriage when King Xhaiden made it clear what the situation was," he told her, putting an end to the argument with cold finality. "I don't think you have a right to complain. It His Majesty's decision who to bed with. If you did not like this arrangement, you should not have become his bride."

Kami turned, his kimono sweeping over the floor smoothly and headed back to his quarters. Despite their fear of Xhaiden, he was not the type to throw a fit over something like that. After all, Kami had insulted him from the moment they met for months. Even now, when he felt it was appropriate, he did not hold back his comments. However, if he found that Kami had been insulted, then nothing stayed his hand. It was an amusing contrary, really. One could insult him all they liked to his face or behind their hands, but they were not allowed to say one word about Kami.

Xhaiden was already waiting for him in his bedroom and he raised an eyebrow in surprise. "What are you doing here? It's the middle of the day. Shouldn't you be in court?"

With boyish, excited enthusiasm, the king leapt from the bed and latched onto his lover. "You're back. You don't usually leave. Anyway, I have a surprise for you."

Kami already had a premonition that something was up and he frowned. Xhaiden was never like this unless he had a plan up his sleeve that he was excited over. He wormed his way out of those warm arms that didn't want to let go, almost losing his kimono along the way, and put his hands on his hips with what he hoped was a stern stare. "What are you up to?"

"I've got a trip planned. You've been saying lately that Erimentha's maids have been giving you a hard time, so I thought you might want to relax away from everyone."

He sighed and put a hand to his forehead, glancing at all the flowers he had cultivated in his room. Who would take care of them while he was gone? He had no doubt he'd end up going, saying no to Xhaiden, especially when he was so bloody _excited_ like a hopeful little boy, was impossible. "You really are impossible, My Lord. You can't just spring something like this on me and expect me to be ready, especially since you seem to want to go tomorrow."

"Actually, in three hours, so—"

"_Three hours?!_ But I haven't even packed—"

"I did that for you already!" Xhaiden's cheerful, relaxed smile made Kami's shoulders sag with defeat. "Your bag is already prepared with some clothes and all. Come on, let's just go and relax. I want to be with just you."

When those strong arms wrapped around him once again, he gave up. There was no reason to keep up with trying to talk in reason. Xhaiden smelled clean and he had obviously just shaved. Kami hated the stubble and refused to let Xhaiden have a beard, so he ended up shaving once every two days practically.

"Very well. Let me get changed into something more suitable to travel with."

"Kami."

Kami half turned at Xhaiden's serious tone and he blinked when suddenly his lips were captured expertly. The sorcerer's cheeks were flushed red, especially since they had only been intimate that one time. The doctor had forbid any kind of stress so that Xhaiden's shoulder would heal. Once the bandages were off, Xhaiden was full of energy.

Xhaiden's tongue finally pulled out, his mouth nipping Kami's lips ever so lightly as they drew apart, and that softly loving smile was given to him. "I love you, Kami. I just want to spend as much time with you as I can with whatever time I have before someone actually succeeds in taking my life. I want to protect you. I want you to love only me."

Very rarely was Xhaiden ever so romantic and sweetly gentle, but whenever he was, Kami felt as if he was melting. His heart would beat at the speed of a hummingbird's and his knees went weak. Hands shaking a little, they gripped the king's shirt, dragging him close for another kiss, this time a powerful one.

If it hadn't been for the fact that there was a knock on the door by a servant informing them that their horses were ready, it was entirely possible that Xhaiden would have pressed his advantage onto the bed.

Woken from the atmosphere, Kami shoved Xhaiden away with arms that were limp and face red as a cherry. "Leave, I'm changing!" he ordered shakily and fled toward his closet, trying to still his pounding heart. He could hear a faint chuckle from the king as he left the room, but he couldn't think of a scathing remark to throw at that retreating back.

"Damn, I'm in trouble," he muttered, clutching at his chest and trying will his heart to calm. It was no surprise when it didn't work.

****

"This is it!"

Kami peered over Xhaiden's broader shoulder and sent a skeptical eye at the building before them. Since he was impossible at riding by himself, Xhaiden had made the sorcerer ride together with him. At first, he had wanted Kami to ride in the front, but when the king's hands had teasingly began to wander, Kami had made it clear that he sat at the back or they started walking.

Needless to say, Kami won that argument.

The house was a three-story affair, painted a faded blue. It was taken care of, but a little old. There were obviously not enough people to take care of it, since with a closer inspection, he could see there were places that needed repair. A glimpse to his right revealed a small forest. A small child burst from the brush a second later, carrying a wicker basket full of strawberries.

"Where is this place?"

"Just a little getaway," Xhaiden replied with an easy smile and dismounted, arms reaching up to wrap around Kami's waist to help him down. To the sorcerer's amusement and irritation, instead of setting him on his feet, Xhaiden proceeded to carry him to the front door, prompting the child, who proved to be a little girl, to giggle.

"My Lord, put me down. We're not married and this is embarrassing and demeaning."

"You have too much pride," Xhaiden complained lightly, but set him on his feet anyway.

Kami straightened his clothes, trying to ignore the pain in his behind, and sent a side-glance at his companion. Xhaiden had already begun greeting the few people that took care of the house, starting with the stable hand. He would have possibly gotten lost in his introspection of the king, if it hadn't been for the little girl tugging him inside.

"Momma told me to show you to your room when you got here. It's upstairs."

She was a little chatterbox, but Kami didn't really mind. It washed over him like tiny waves lapping at his feet, but she looked so happy that he didn't have the heart to tell her he wasn't interested in what she was talking about. She jumped from subject to subject with no clear connection, at least to him, but never expected an answer from him, which was well and good, since he never remembered what they were talking about.

"Here it is! Isn't it pretty? This is called the blue room."

The room itself was large. Not quite as big as the one at the palace, but enough to be comfortable. There were two doors that a little investigation proved to be a bathroom and a sitting room besides the bedroom. The bed itself was almost too large and he thought he might look tiny in it. The reason it was called the blue room was obvious, since everything in here, including the wallpaper was in various shades of blue, mostly vibrant sea blues.

It was quite beautiful.

"Which room will the King be staying in?" he asked absent-mindedly as he dropped his bag of items and clothing on the edge of the bed, eyes going to wide window on one wall. The sun shown in brightly, giving the room a happy feeling.

"Here."

Kami blinked and finally looked at her. "I'm sorry, I thought this was my room."

"It is."

"You just said the King would be staying here."

The girl looked at him curiously. "Yes. Momma said that he told her that you would be sharing one room. It was nice of him," she continued, oblivious to the fact that Kami wasn't happy, "since we only have to clean one room then. Papa's got a bad leg and Momma has to do most everything. Gideon is bad at house work and I'm too little to do a lot of work."

With her happy face and given the situation, Kami couldn't say anything about the room now. It would be rude, at the very least. The little girl trotted out, leaving him alone with his thoughts. Really, he told himself to calm his nerves, it wasn't like there was anything to hide. Perhaps the reason he was getting so uppity lately was because finally Xhaiden was healed and he would obviously want to be intimate.

"Hey, Kami, you okay?" He turned from his position by the window and glanced at Xhaiden in the doorway. "You stand at windows a lot. You're always there tending to your flowers back at the palace."

"Is there anything wrong with that?"

Xhaiden leaned against the doorway. "No, not really, but while you look beautiful there, it just makes my heart ache. Your figure, surrounded by light, is stunning, but you look sad. It makes me want to go up and force you to do things, anything, just to make you show like you're alive. I always have the urge to stare at your chest to make sure you're breathing, because you're always as still as a statue."

Kami watched the far away gaze of the King and moved away from the window to touch that muscular arm. "Forgive me. I didn't think it bothered you so much."

The thoughtful and somewhat wistfully sad expression was destroyed when a reassuring grin appeared on Xhaiden's face. "It's okay, nothing to apologize for. Just don't do it so much, especially when we're here by ourselves and the sun is shining and it's a beautiful day out."

"You must have been an outdoor child when you were a kid," Kami told him and Xhaiden leaned down to peck the sorcerer on the cheek. "If every child was like you, no wonder everyone in this country has such dark skin.

"And you must have been cooped up with your books. Now come on!"

Kami couldn't remember ever spending such a full day before in his life. Xhaiden was always taking him somewhere; he was always on his feet and moving. He met all the caretakers, heard their stories, and tried not to think a lot, so he didn't worry Xhaiden. Xhaiden had even undertaken the impossible task of trying to teach Kami to ride, but after a while, the stable hand, Gideon, and he decided it was a lost cause when both horse and rider decided they didn't like each other for fifth time.

"I'm going to the stream in the woods to wash up, since I'm all sweaty after today. Coming?"

The sorcerer looked up from his bag and out the window. It was dark now and he frowned. Well, Xhaiden was a soldier; he could take care of himself. "Go ahead of me, My Lord. I'll be coming in a few minutes."

Dressed in just light slacks, Kami got an eyeful of Xhaiden's well-built chest. His cheeks flushed bright red and he looked down, trying not to see the rippling muscles or the scars, the most recent one on his left shoulder from the assassination attempt. Xhaiden seemed to notice that Kami had gotten embarrassed and he laughed.

"Fine then, I'll meet you there."

Xhaiden reminded him of a powerful lion, both in personality and build. It was difficult to rile him most times, but when you did, it was hard to defend against such attacks. Full of sleek grace and power, something to marvel at. Green eyes that were, in truth, predator's eyes; the only reason those eyes were different when it came to Kami was that they were trained on him with love instead of danger.

After Kami changed into his robe, he left the house. He'd only been shown this path once to the river in the forest, but his feet remembered it. Remembering places and directions was just a gift he had, and perhaps sometimes he took it for granted. He couldn't ever remember getting lost anywhere.

It was thanks to the peace of the night that he heard the sounds of a scuffle ahead of him. Thanking the fact that he was barefooted, allowing his feet to find their own way and know the lay and dips of the land much better, he got to the riverbank in record time.

Xhaiden was fending off barehanded two men covered head to toe in black. They were no doubt assassins, but this time, one of them was a mage. It was so easy to pick out which, because he was lighter on his feet and the feeling of power that surrounded him was unmistakable to any magic user.

Since it didn't seem critical, in fact, they were merely circling each other, Kami took a moment to take a deep breath and calm himself before entering into the fray. "Take my eyes off of you and you're in trouble," he told him calmly.

"But you know I like to see you run to my rescue," Xhaiden countered with a boyish grin.

Xhaiden was wet head to toe and he still standing in the middle of the river. When the fighter leapt forward, both a knife and sword in his hand, Kami took advantage of the sudden confusion to launch a spell at the mage nearby.

Either the person was a whole lot weaker than he expected or his power was unconsciously too strong, because the assassin was sent flying back into a tree and everyone could hear snap of bone. By the way the head was bent when the body slumped to the ground, it was obvious the neck was broken. When the other assassin attempted to flee, Xhaiden wasted no time in stealing the sword his hand and beheading him.

Silence surrounded them with the scuffle done. It had lasted a mere few seconds. Kami turned away and headed back to the house, not having any interest in bathing anymore. Xhaiden called to him, but didn't follow, as he seemed to decide that taking care of the bodies took priority at the moment. It was understandable. Even detached Kami didn't want a child to see such a gruesome thing.

When Xhaiden returned, Kami was standing at the window, still in his white robe. "Kami…Look, if I hadn't done it, the man would have come back again."

"I know," Kami replied. "I understand that very well. I'm not condemning you, My Lord."

"Then get away from the damn window," Xhaiden muttered and physically yanked him away, pinning him to the bed. Kami had never seen his eyes so irritated before, nor had Xhaiden ever been so physical with him.

"Is there—"

"Would you stop acting like we're strangers?! You get all jumpy every time I come near you. You blush whenever I kiss you, you've told me you love me, but you push me away at the same time! Care to tell me what the hell that's all about?"

Kami had been wrong. Xhaiden was not irritated, he was righteously angry. And if he was honest about it, Kami knew that he had a right to be, because that was what he'd been doing. He looked away after a moment and muttered, "I know, but I'm afraid. The first time…I was just afraid I'd lose you and you were injured. But now you're not injured anymore and well…"

"You think I'd hurt you?"

"Not intentionally, but…look at you. You're built so powerfully. You're almost three times the size I am in everything."

Xhaiden finally smiled and chuckled, his head dipping to nuzzle Kami's neck, sending shivers down the sorcerer's spine. "What a silly thing to worry about. Of course I'd be gentle with you."

And Xhaiden, in the end, was far gentler than Kami expected, making him wonder why he'd been so frightened in the first place.

****

"I can't believe you were worried about that," Xhaiden laughed, cuddling Kami close and leaving absent-minded kisses on his slim neck.

Kami didn't have the heart, or rather the energy, to yell at Xhaiden for teasing him like this. Kami hadn't realized there were so many sexual positions and he blushed all the way up to his ears, burying himself deeper into the covers to hide it.

"You are so cute, Kami," Xhaiden whispered, but his voice was still full of teasing laughter.

"Oh be quiet," Kami muttered, but he couldn't stop the smile that slowly stretched his lips. Outside, the sun sent its first rays through the window panes.

** End **  



	9. Chapter 8: Save Me

For all the fact that Watanuki acted larger than life, that usually he was so hard to miss, he could also make himself disappear very quickly. Every time Doumeki tried to talk to the boy, all he could see was a metaphorical vapor trail and a place of empty air where he used to be. Wasn't that being a little too extreme?

After three days, he had come to the conclusion that he was going to need help pinning down that jackrabbit. His own feelings were just screaming at him to do something, to let them be known to the person he liked. Honestly, he'd never imagined what kind of pressure and tenseness a person had when someone told you they liked you when you liked them too, and yet had no way of letting that other person know. Soon, it became the only thing you could concentrate on, to the point of exclusion of everything else.

"Kunogi."

The girl, in the middle of sorting papers for the student council, looked up and flashed her patented, happy smile. How she could when she caused harm to everyone around her, he didn't know, but then again, that was no lookout of his. He had his _own_ set of problems to deal with at the moment and that problem was always running away from him.

"Yes, Doumeki-kun?"

"I need your help."

Her hunter green eyes lit up brightly, as if she thought the idea of being useful to him wonderful, and her smile widened to the point that it was almost painful to look at. He almost felt sorry for her that he and Watanuki were the only friends she'd probably ever have, thanks to her unfortunate condition.

"Of course, anything I can do! What is it?"

"I need to talk to Watanuki, but he keeps running away from me. Can you help set up a meeting without him knowing? Somewhere like the roof?"

"Sure, but why not just do it at our usual lunch spot?"

"It's a private matter."

Something shifted imperceptibly in her expression. "Oh, all right. I'll try my best to get you some alone-time with Watanuki, though I'm not sure how I can help with keeping him there."

She stood then, her movements almost seeming rushed, but her light and pleased expression didn't even so much as flinch. He watched her absently, noting that just under the collar of her shirt, hidden from sight, the start of scars began. The scars that she had paid to have to save Watanuki's life when he fallen out the window. Doumeki didn't know if he was supposed to know about them, but she had made it clear that Watanuki was to never know, and he could understand why. It would only make Watanuki feel guilty even more.

Really, that boy had the biggest heart of anyone he'd ever met.

She was already at the door when he said, "Thanks, Kunogi."

The smile that she wore seemed just a tad sad and her eyes were almost a little overly bright, for some reason. She was a smart girl and he wondered if she put the pieces together for the awkwardness between the boys. Did she disapprove of that sort of thing? Is that the reason for the slightly discontented look in her gaze? It didn't seem right, not something that fit her accepting character, but if it wasn't that, then he had no idea what it might be.

"Don't worry about it, Doumeki-kun. If it can mend things between you two and make you both happy, then I'd do it. You two are my friends, after all."

Doumeki frowned just a little at her retreating back and he glanced down at the courtyard below from the window, seeing Watanuki's slim back just leaving the school gates, reading a paper that was probably an assignment he had to complete. Why did things have to be so complicated and such a mess? In a month's time, it would mark the anniversary of the day he had gotten involved in this spiritual world of Watanuki's life. It would make it a year that he'd opened himself up to that lively boy.

Truly, the three of them were such an ironic mess. They were the only friends they had. Doumeki had never had close friends because he'd never gotten emotionally attached to anyone. People seemed to rather want to worship him from a distance than try to be a friend to him. Kunogi dared not have friends for fear of her condition of bringing pain and misfortune to all those around her. Watanuki remained distant because of his spiritual ability to draw all kinds of ghosts and supernatural entities to him. It was amazing to him to think that the three of them, loners by nature, somehow managed to draw together and make a triangle, a tripod, of support for the other two.

He sighed and rubbed his forehead. He'd done more introspection in the past few days than he'd done in months and it was all thanks to Watanuki's startling confession. His heart was beginning to ache just at the thought of the boy and he realized just how deep in it he was. When had Watanuki wormed past all his apathetic defenses? He'd been happy to not see the big picture for the longest time; to think of them as only friends, but now his heart was yearning for so much more, especially now that Watanuki was _willing_ to give him more.

****

The roof was too windy that day, the air feeling icy cold and bringing with it the texture of rain. Watanuki shivered, wrapping his arms around his chest and waiting. Himawari had asked him to meet her on top of the roof because she had a very important matter she had to discuss. In truth, he suspected it was probably about her feelings for Doumeki and that she _needed_ to talk about it.

As painful as it was, he understood that need. When your feelings just kept growing, they _needed_ an outlet otherwise you would find yourself going insane just by thinking of them. And despite the fact that he loved Doumeki as well, he'd gladly keep that a secret from her and listen to all her worries if it would make her feel better. After all, she really was his only friend in school, besides Doumeki…and he wasn't even sure if Doumeki and he were that anymore.

Watanuki leaned against the railing and looked down below at the ground so far away. He wasn't afraid of heights, even though by all rights after almost having fallen off a roof almost a year ago thanks to Yuuko's job, he should be. Was this because he'd once been an archangel and could have flown around high in the sky? He hoped not. He was terrified that such a huge thing as being an archangel was affecting him so much even after he'd been reincarnated.

"It's cold, but it feels so nice," he murmured. For some reason, this cold and slightly wet breeze that flowed over him felt nice. He preferred cold to hot, if he had no choice but to choose between them. The breeze was abnormally strong, it never stopped blowing and ruffled up his hair to the point that he didn't bother trying to tame it, but he didn't mind. The roof was becoming one of his favorite places to be because of its tranquility and mostly nice weather.

"Oi."

Suddenly every bit of peace he felt was shattered and he whirled to see Doumeki occupying the only doorway. His skin was normally paler than his classmate's, but this time it was positively white. Eyes latched onto the archer's hands as he watched the boy lock the door behind him. Apparently, he was not going to let Watanuki go without a good long talk.

Watanuki didn't _want_ to talk. He just wanted to forget he'd ever admitted his feelings. For the past three days, whenever his eyes would meet Doumeki's and it looked like Doumeki was going to approach him, he'd flee. It was shameful, embarrassing, not like a man at all, but he just could not bear the feelings of rejection he felt.

"I'm not really good at expressing myself—"

"Oh _really_," Watanuki sneered, interrupting and turning away so that the tears budding in his couldn't be seen, "I had no idea." The wind whipping about the rooftop made the wetness in his eyes painful, but every time he blinked, shielding his eyes in warmth for a few seconds, when he opened them it only felt worse.

"—so I'm just going to do this," Doumeki finished, as if Watanuki hadn't spoken.

Strong, callused fingers gripped his chin and turned his head purposefully toward the archer. Watanuki blinked in shock, as he hadn't even registered the boy approaching him, and his ice-cold lips were encased in a shocking warmth and wetness. It was awkward in a way, inexperienced, but held a deep-seated power that made his waist and knees melt.

His hands gripped the jacket of Doumeki's tightly into fists and couldn't help his instinctual reaction to respond with just as much passion. His glasses were beginning to fog up with their closeness, but he couldn't see anything as it was, so it didn't matter. It was probably only going to be a once in a lifetime chance to kiss Doumeki, so he was going to make sure there was no way either of them would forget it. He would not allow himself any regrets later.

Arms were wrapped tightly around his chest and waist until it was almost too tight and his lungs were beginning to order him to break for air, but he refused. His tongue probed Doumeki's lips and his mouth parted obligingly to make the kiss deeper. Wetness was staining body as the rain that had threatened started to fall, but he didn't care. Only later would he wonder if the Ame Warashi had done that on purpose.

Was this what Kami had felt when Xhaiden had kissed him? Did he ever feel as if the power of his lover, the strength of his personality and convictions, overwhelmed him and made him feel as if he was pale and without depth?

Their hands were clawing tightly at each other's backs, pulling themselves tighter together, even if there was little way to be physically closer except in bed. Watanuki could feel himself being pressed against the railing behind him, its height barely above his waist, but he had no fear of falling, not when Doumeki was with him.

As the seconds trickled by while their tongues played and caressed each other, Watanuki was storing every precious moment in his mind. He knew that when they broke apart, he'd probably bolt. He knew that this kiss was probably only intended to be a consolation made out of pity by Doumeki, but he _didn't care_! My god, how much he loved this boy made him reel in terror. He wanted every part of Doumeki, physical and emotional, to belong to him alone. He'd never felt so passionate about anything before in his life, even cooking, which he loved to do.

When they finally broke away, Watanuki saw Doumeki out of breath for the first time in the entire year they'd been together. The rain was falling down harder, bringing with it frigid blasts of wind, and soaking their clothes, but they were too busy clutching each other to notice.

And then Watanuki regretted that kiss instantly. It wasn't that he didn't like it. Quite the opposite, he loved it. It was just that he wanted to do it again and again and again. With that kiss, Doumeki had awakened a depth of passion he had never once imagined, both physical and emotional.

It took all the strength he had that Doumeki and ice cold rain hadn't leeched from to push away from the archer. One piece of consolation was that he couldn't tell apart his tears from the hard raindrops falling from the stormy sky. It was in the middle of the day but the dark gray clouds that filled the sky made it seem like it was nearing night.

"Watanuki—"

"Don't!" he yelled over the downpour. The roof wasn't huge, but for just two people, it was plenty big enough for the bespectacled boy to keep a distance from the archer. His glasses were fogged up and filling with water so he took them off and stuck them in the pocket of jacket. It made it somewhat easier to see.

"Watanuki, listen to me—"

"_**No!**_ I know that you only kissed me out of pity for what we had and what I said, but I can't stand it! You're so cruel, Doumeki! Do you know how much I love you?! Loved the taste of you?! I'll never be able to forget it as long as I live!! I want more, but I can't have anymore!! Is this what you intended?! You're hateful, you damn idiot!!"

His voice was growing hoarse yelling over his sobs and the thunder of the storm. This was not just rain, this was a storm that seemed to want to take vengeance on the earth for some perceived slight.

It mirrored his emotions perfectly.

"I didn't kiss you out of pity!" It was the first time he'd ever heard Doumeki raise his voice and he wasn't sure if it was because Doumeki was trying to make himself heard over the rain or because of his emotions. "I _don't_ kiss people just because of pity! In fact, that _was_ my first kiss. I did it because **I love you**!"

"_**No!**_" Watanuki screeched, wanting to cover his ears, because what was being said hurt more than anything. It hurt because he was convinced this whole thing just _couldn't_ be real. If he believed it was, he'd only get hurt. "I can't believe you!"

"Is protecting yourself more important than being happy to you?!"

"What are you talking about?!"

They were barely a few feet apart, but they had to yell to be heard over the storm. He was shivering with cold, but somehow, he didn't notice just how soaked he was. It was so dark with clouds, the sun obscured completely, and the rain so thick and hard to see through, that he didn't know if Doumeki was shivering as well.

"You're so busy protecting yourself, forcing yourself to doubt, that you can't even begin to be happy." Doumeki began to approach him slowly, but Watanuki could only retreat until his back was pressed against the edge of the railing again. "You're not the type who's first instinct is to _doubt_, Watanuki."

By the time he realized that he should move, Doumeki already had him pinned in place with arms on either side of his torso. They wouldn't have to yell anymore, which was good, because he didn't think that his hoarse and sore vocal cords could manage it anymore. They were so close now…if they held each other, they'd be as close as they had been when they kissed and then…he didn't think he'd be able to control his passion.

"Kimihiro, **I love you**. So be yourself and believe me. I've been trying to tell you for the past three days and you've ran away every time before I could get a hold of you." Watanuki's mouth opened and closed, as he desperately tried not to believe it, but Doumeki was right. He was the kind of person whose first instinct would never be disbelief or doubt. It's what got him into so much trouble. Doumeki's golden eyes latched onto his lips and he could see the raw need in them. "Let me kiss you, please."

Watanuki barely got his nod finished before their arms were flung around each other and they were kissing just as passionately as before. Damn, Doumeki was just so tall that he felt dwarfed. This time, one of the archer's legs teased its way between his own and he flushed with embarrassment when he realized just how hard that kiss was making him.

Unlike in romance novels, just because their feelings were finally cleared up, the rain didn't stop. It continued to pound down almost painfully, but Watanuki was completely lost in their own world. Doumeki's arousal was slowly pressing more insistently against his thigh and he clutching so tightly onto the boy's broader shoulders that he was standing on his tiptoes.

"Kimihiro…" Doumeki muttered when they pulled, gasping for breath and their hazy gazes met.

"Shizuka," he muttered, realizing that he was quite a very healthy sixteen-year-old boy and that he'd never felt lust before in his life, not quite like this. Even when he used to be fixated on Himawari, he realized on introspection after he no longer liked her in that way that he'd never once thought of her in a sexual way.

Without even asking this time, Doumeki leaned down to kiss the daylights out of him for the third time and this time, a hand literally plunged into his pants. Watanuki could only gasp in shock and had no space in his mind to berate the archer for doing this in the middle of a rainstorm, in the middle of lunchtime. At least the door was locked…

Realizing that his now-boyfriend was probably in the same boat as him, he loosened Doumeki's pants and slipped his hand to cup that hard erection, causing a hiss to be wrung from those lips and vibrating against Watanuki's tongue. Only later would Watanuki be embarrassed at his forward at his actions, but he was so caught up in the moment that not even a hint of blush touched his cheeks.

"You're expression is so sluttish, Kimihiro," Doumeki muttered, burying his face in Watanuki's neck as their hands were quickly quite busy on their erections. His waist was growing sore from being pressed so hard against the railing behind him, but he didn't care. He'd had no idea this sort of thing could be so pleasurable.

He could barely hear the bell signaling the end of lunch, but it didn't look like they'd be finish in the five minutes left to make it to the classroom before class started. Besides, they'd be trailing a lake behind them in the halls anyway.

Watanuki's knees went weak and he finally slumped down to the rooftop, back supported only by the railing behind him. They were both awkward at this whole thing, but that didn't matter. The only thing that Watanuki cared about was the fact that it was Doumeki doing this to him. Puffs of air were almost visible in the wind and rain and he could barely keep his eyes open as he grew harder and more sensitive the longer Doumeki stroked him.

Doumeki himself was shaking as he was pressing into Watanuki's hand and they shared countless kisses until Watanuki no longer bothered trying to count. He blushed to realize that Doumeki, while not only being taller and broader than him, was also larger in _that_ length.

He desperately wanted more than just this, but before he could attempt to try to bring it further, he found in embarrassment his own climax. It had snuck up on him so fast that he hadn't had any chance to warn Doumeki. It was barely a minute after that when his palm was suddenly soaked with his boyfriend's own release.

Tired from all the stress he'd been carrying around for the past week and the rainstorm sapped all his warmth, he passed out tiredly in Doumeki's arms. Doumeki could only fix their clothes and carefully carry the smaller boy from the roof and down to the infirmary.

It would be a miracle if they didn't catch a cold from this and all the while, the pounding thunderstorm and downpour never let up.

** End **


	10. Chapter 9: After Revelations

When Watanuki woke up, the first thing he noticed was a white ceiling. His head pounded for a minute with 'whats' and 'whys', but in the end, the only thing he wished for were his glasses. He was unreasonably cold, indeed shivers were running down his spine like horses on a racetrack, and his hair was wet and plastered against his forehead.

"You're in the infirmary."

Oh god, he knew that voice. Just by hearing it, the things that happened on the rooftop came rushing back to him and he felt the color rising to his cheeks almost instantly in an embarrassed blush. He peeked around the sheets covering him up to his chin and blinked when he saw Doumeki wearing his P.E. uniform.

"Why—"

"We were both soaked to the bone and the doctor said we needed to change our clothes right then. You were passed out, so I did it for you."

That explained why his hair was still wet, but the rest of him was nicely snug and dry, he thought as he lifted the sheet to look down at himself. Noticing his glasses on a chair next to the bed, he sat up and pulled them on. He pulled them off almost instantly to wipe them clean. The rain really had done a number on them and the water had dried without being wiped off, so consequently there were great splotches all over the lenses.

For all the fact that Watanuki knew he was a loud and brash boy, he could think of _nothing_ to say, in light of the aftermath of what happened on the roof. It was still pouring down rain and he wondered, in passing, how long he'd been out. The silence began to grown awkward and he fidgeted in the bed.

"I think I'll go to class—"

"I love you."

"Don't interrupt me!" he shot back, even when his cheeks darkened and he could only look away shyly. It wasn't surprising, really, that Doumeki put it so bluntly. He was a blunt kind of guy. What made it so embarrassing was the fact that Doumeki, while also being deadly serious, has the _softest_ and sweet look in his eyes that Watanuki had ever seen, and it was only there for him to see.

Slowly, Doumeki moved to sit on the side of the bed, his hand reaching out to caress Watanuki's hot cheek. It almost didn't seem that this was the same boy from the rooftop who'd attacked him so recklessly with need. Nor was it like Doumeki. The Doumeki he knew, and consequently fell in love with, was candid and passionate. This gentleness he wasn't used to and kept bringing back memories of the dreams he'd had about Kami.

"You don't seem to be getting a fever, though your face is hot."

Wait…_what?!_

"You _jerk!_ Are you telling me that you were checking my temperature?!"

"Your cheeks were red and I wondered if you caught a cold from the rain. What did you think I was doing?"

Watanuki gestured unintelligently with his hands, abortive actions that explained nothing as he stuttered, trying to not simultaneously yell and hide under the blanket in embarrassment. "I thought you were…you know…being _romantic_!"

"Oh. You wanted romantic."

"No, I didn't _want_ romantic," he snapped, "I was just saying that I _thought_—"

His words were cut off when suddenly a tongue invaded into his mouth and a deep crimson color filled his whole face when Doumeki's larger form came bearing down on him, covering and pressing him down onto the bed. His insides began to melt as he realized that this kiss was just as powerful as the one on the rooftop, though not _quite_ as needy.

"Hey, hey, hey! What the hell do you think you're doing?!" he yelled frantically as Doumeki's lips suddenly began to assault his neck.

"I'm being romantic."

"This isn't _romantic_, it's _sexual harassment_!!"

"It's only sexual harassment if you don't want it," Doumeki retorted without breaking a stride, fingers going to the zipper of the long-sleeved jacket he wore for his P.E. uniform.

"_**Who says I want it?!**_ What about the damn doctor?! Where is he?!"

Doumeki lifted his head and gave him a _look_. When Watanuki's panicked and indignant face didn't change for comprehension, a hand gripped between the smaller boy's legs. Feeling the hardness, he kneaded the tip of it just a little, even through the sheets, and suddenly _the look_ made sense. Watanuki looked away. "That…that…that doesn't prove that I want it!! It's a _natural_ reaction!! I can't help it that you look good!"

"Thanks."

The smug tone made Watanuki blink and turn back, but Doumeki was already back to kissing his chest, teeth gently grabbing a nipple through the thin undershirt underneath the jacket. He hissed automatically in arousal, praying that the doctor would not show up any time soon. "Thanks for what?!"

"You said I was handsome."

"**_I didn't say that_**! I just said that you 'looked good'. That wasn't handsome! It just meant that…you're…passable…in the looks…department…" His words got continually breathy the longer that Doumeki seemed intent on seducing him and the fiery passion from the rooftop was awakening. Any more than this and he wouldn't be able to control himself. "Doctor…coming…"

"He has to take over teaching for someone in the science department right now. We have at least an hour, which is plenty enough time."

Oh god, he was falling farther and farther away from his self-control and he completely lost it when Doumeki shifted to lay more comfortably over him, tossing the sheet aside to grind their hips together. It cause friction and kind of pleasure that his body had begun to crave and he threw his arms around his boyfriend to bring him close for another passionate kiss.

"Watanuki-kun? Doumeki-kun?"

If he had registered it, he would have stopped, but even Himawari's voice at the infirmary doorway didn't reach him in time to prevent her from seeing them. When her eyes touched his, effectively dousing him in metaphorical cold water, he remembered that she had had no idea about his feelings for Doumeki. She didn't appear shocked and though it looked as if she might cry, she merely smiled. "Oh, sorry. I'm glad it all worked out, Doumeki-kun."

Before he could utter a word, the door was closed discreetly, but Watanuki was left with the feeling that he had betrayed her. He knew that she'd never hold it against him, that wasn't the problem. His conscience was yelling at him for what she had just seen and he had been unable to say a word.

Seeing the upset look on Watanuki's face, Doumeki pulled away to sit on the side of the bed again, their passion doused for the moment. "Are you worried she won't approve?"

Watanuki wanted to yell and hit Doumeki for trying it at school a _second_ time, tell him that he was stupid and wrong, but Doumeki had no idea that Himawari had been in love with him. And he had made a promise not to tell him ever. Not even a slip of the tongue would be allowed. Watanuki valued the friendship he had with Doumeki and Himawari and he feared that if Doumeki were to know of Himawari's feelings that it would break the triangle of support that the three of them created.

"I can't _believe_ you sometimes! At school! A second time!"

"You wanted it as much as I did."

"Yes, damn it, but think of the time and the place!!"

Doumeki sighed and gave him a quelling look when his yelling proceeded to get louder. "What are you getting upset about? I wanted to do it because I love you. Is that wrong?"

Watanuki flushed brightly with another blush. It didn't matter how many times Doumeki said it, the words 'I love you' never ceased to bring that reaction out of him. Perhaps it was because he couldn't quite believe it. That he had managed to grasp this happiness.

"Yuuko-san will never let me hear the end of it…"

****

"Watanuki!!"

"Oh god…"

"How was it, how was it?"

Even though the blush made his cheeks too bright, Watanuki tried to exchange his shoes for his soft slippers with as much dignity as he could, ignoring Yuuko's bounciness as she, Mokona, and the girls all send a barrage of questions at him.

"I'm not going to ask how you know, nor do I want—"

"The Ame Warashi."

"_I said I didn't want to know_!!" he screeched at her smug look and stomped past her to find his apron and handkerchief he usually wrapped around his hair. The rain had let up to a light drizzle by the end of school that day, and for that, he was grateful.

"Watanukiiiiiiiiii, tell me!"

"I'm under no obligation to tell you!" he snapped, dusting with more than the necessary force so it hid his shyness and embarrassment.

"Awww! Stingy! And Doumeki-kun is so handsome that I—"

"_**You keep my man out of your dreams!!**_"

There was a conspicuous moment of silence after his outburst and four pairs of eyes stared at him. He turned the most crimson possible at the eruption of his jealousy and he fidgeted under the stares. Was Yuuko mad at him? Was that the reason she was looking so serious and just on the light side of angry?

"Watanuki."

"Y-yes, Yuuko-san?"

"Could it be that you're sexually frustrated?"

"…"

Her eyes narrowed, but this time he had knew that she was enjoying this, not angry, despite her almost strict expression and the silence of the peanut gallery. "Could it be that Doumeki isn't…_good_?"

He could feel a vein pulsing in his forehead, feel the pressure slowly rising, and when she opened her mouth to say something else, he snapped, interrupting with a furious tirade that even she would be hard pressed to interrupt.

"_**Damn you, Yuuko!** Don't you dare insult Doumeki like that! And I am **not** sexually frustrated! We almost did it **twice** today! He was so damn good that I—_"

It wasn't until her grin became nothing short of smug and she looked so eager that he realized she had tricked him so expertly into saying everything he hadn't wanted to say. His face flushed with embarrassment at what he almost said and he wished that the earth would just swallow him up right there so he could get away from those gleeful eyes.

"So good that you…what?! Tell, Watanuki! So good that you passed out?"

When Watanuki only looked away, hiding his face behind one hand, she gasped, a genuine show of jovial shock. "_Oh my god_, you _didn't_ pass out because it was so good, Watanuki! _Oh my **god**_, that is just so _precious!_" Peals of laughter echoed from her open mouth and she alternately giggled and guffawed until she slumped to the floor, clutching her sides tightly.

"I hate my life," he muttered, bringing up his other hand to hide his red face from the laughing Dimensional Witch and her mini-Yuuko named Mokona.

**End**


	11. Chapter 10: The First Date

She watched them silently, managing smiles when they spoke to her, but she was often too busy feeling happy and ignoring the stabs of jealousy to speak much to her companions. She didn't hold it against Watanuki, not after all the things he had gone through, both from her own problem and his own ability, but she couldn't help wondering what it would be like to have a boyfriend.

Himawari knew that she'd probably never have one. She'd be too afraid that she'd end up killing someone, like she almost had to Watanuki when he'd fallen out the window. She'd warned him that next time it possibly would, but he had just given her a tired smile and said that he liked her smile. What an idiot, she thought fondly, feeling a sad affection for the spiritual boy.

Her feelings for Doumeki hadn't changed, but she would rather see Watanuki happy than herself, after all the things he had done for her. He had always gone out of his way to make her feel welcome. The first day he had smiled at her and talked to her, she had been shocked. As cheerful as she was, didn't he notice that she didn't have friends? She had gotten used to it after all these years so that being alone didn't bother her and she didn't feel lonely, but Watanuki had been different.

No matter how long she waited, for the longest time, he hadn't noticed all the bad things that happened to him were because she caused them. He really was a special boy, if after knowing everything, he could still choose to be around her. Which was why, if Watanuki loved Doumeki and was happy, she would gladly give up on Doumeki. It wasn't like she had held onto any hope in the first place.

"Himawari-chan?"

"Yes, Watanuki-kun?"

"You look sort of pale. Are you all right?"

A genuine smile floated on her lips at Watanuki's pure concern, untainted by anything except true feelings of worry, and she giggled a little, even if she didn't feel like laughing. "I'm fine, Watanuki-kun. I've just been feeling a little ill lately. I hope I'm not getting a cold."

Thankfully at that moment, the bell rang and she could pack up her lunch without it seeming like she was fleeing from her friends. Why did this have to be so complicated? Why did she have to be flattered and happy because Watanuki cared about her, and yet so jealous because he was happy with Doumeki? Couldn't she just be honestly happy for Watanuki? He'd gone through just as much as her in his life; they were in the same boat. By all rights, she should understand him more than anyone else. When something like this happened to someone like them, she should be unbelievably happy for him.

So why couldn't she?

****

"Oi."

Watanuki sent a poisonous glance at the archer next to him. Even _now_, the boy was refusing to say his name. He didn't expect his first name to come out, but damn it, why couldn't he even use his last name?! And until he did either, Watanuki absolutely refused to call Doumeki by his first name and had told Doumeki so that day when the archer had brought up the topic.

"_What?!_"

"Are you free Friday?"

"Why?"

"…We're dating."

"Your point?"

"…Dating means we go somewhere."

"Go where?"

"…On something _called_ a date."

Red flushed Watanuki's cheeks and he glared at the stoic golden eyes that watched him. "I _know_ what a date is, thank you! And I have no plans on Friday, so if you want to go, then fine. But I warn you," he threatened, "if you're _late_, I will _never_ make you another lunch. If you _don't show up_, then I never speak to you ever again!"

For once, Doumeki hadn't plugged his ears and that anomaly itself was surprising, but when Doumeki leaned forward to kiss him immediately after, he was shocked. It was the middle of a crowded street, damn him, and it was hardly a chaste one.

When the kiss ended, he floundered for something to say, something to yell, but his burning cheeks seemed to disconnect his vocal cords and he was silent. By the time he was starting on his next rant, taking a huge breath, he noticed it and his words whittled away in silence.

Doumeki was _smirking_ and running a thumb over his lips. "With that taste, do you really think that I'd stand you up?"

Watanuki was as stunned as the rest of the populous the fact that Doumeki had shown such a smug expression, and he could only stare at that muscular back that was walking away. It was the first time that anybody had ever managed to cut him off in mid-rant in his entire life and he knew that Yuuko would just _love_ to know the secret. In fact, just thinking about Yuuko made him shudder and swear to himself that he would _**never**_ let her know what happened.

"_**You bastard!**_" He screeched finally, but it was more for the form of the thing than anything else. His lips still tingled from the kiss and he remembered how Doumeki's tongue had teased them.

Oh god, what happened was just "too good" to believe that Yuuko would be unaware of it and he dreaded going to work that day.

"I'm so gonna get it," he muttered and trudged his way down the street to that little shop of wishing horrors.

****

"Watanuki!!"

"_Nothing happened!!!!_" When there was silence, Watanuki lowered his instinctively thrown up arms and looked at the dimensional witch in the doorway. He gulped at the grin on her face. He was such an **idiot!** He had just made a classic mistake! By that reaction, now she _knew_ that something had happened.

"Is there something you want to tell me, Watanuki?" she wheedled, leaning in close so that he could smell the perfume wafting over him. "I was just going to tell you what I wanted for dinner, but your reaction tells me that there's some juicy news that I'll want to know."

"Re-re-really, nothing happened, Yuuko-san!! Honestly!"

Perhaps it was his red face giving him away, or his stutter, or the fact that he was fidgeting in place, but for whatever reason, it didn't seem she believed him. He swallowed thickly and her smile was growing larger, like the Cheshire Cat's, in Alice in Wonderland.

"Err…Yuuko-san?"

"Yes," she drawled out the word painfully, "Watanuki?"

"Um…c-can I have Friday off?"

Just looking at her face, at the gleeful expression overcoming it, he knew that he was in for the worst teasing he had yet faced. It was also scary how well he knew her that he knew exactly what she was going to say before she said it.

"How about a _trade_, Watanuki."

"…What sort of trade?"

"I'll let you have Friday off…_if_ you tell me every single juicy detail of whatever it is you _don't_ want to tell me."

…How did he know that it was going to come to this? Watanuki hung his head in defeat and she crowed happily, reaching out to grab his arm and drag him into her favorite reclining room. Mokona already had the sake out and her eager eyes, reminding him of particularly voracious 16-year-old girls with yaoi manga, made him sit down and waited with an impatience he hadn't ever seen before.

"W-well," he stuttered, "on the way home from school…"

"Kissing, Watanuki, get me to the kissing!" she interrupted and he flushed red and glared at her.

"_Fine_. He asked me for a date on Friday and when I warned him that I'd never speak to him again if he didn't come, he kissed me. In the middle of the street. With everyone looking at us. Then he had the gall to _smirk_ at me."

"And? _And and_???"

Yuuko was just a little too eager and the brightness in her eyes was beginning to scare him just a little. Women really _were_ to be feared. They were just obsessed with romance…

"H-h-he said that…" Watanuki flushed just remembering it, and he looked down at the floor as he repeated it, "that with my taste, why would he stand me up? Then he walked away."

Yuuko's giggling washed over him and he watched in sullenness as she and Mokona reveled in his story. They were reminiscing over other, similar happenings, but just when he thought he'd be free and he began to sneak quietly to the door, her voice lanced and captured him again, forcing him to stay put.

"You can have the day off on Friday, naturally."

"…When I come back, you're going to make me tell everything that happened, right?" he asked with a small amount of trepidation and a large amount of resignation.

"Naturally. Now get me some shrimp for dinner."

"I thought so…" he muttered and left the room with a sigh.

It really was scary how he was beginning to _understand_ how that woman thought…

****

On Friday afternoon, the weather was as good as Monday's had been bad on the rooftop. The wind was still chilly, quite a cold day, and Watanuki huddled deeper into his jacket. Winter was going to be hitting them any time soon and when it did, it was going to be bad that year. Doumeki hadn't said it would be formal, so he had pulled out one of the few bits of casual clothing he had, which included a pair of very faded, old blue jeans that were just a tad too tight, a long-sleeved white shirt, and a jean-jacket.

"Oi."

"…Should I even bother yelling at you that my name isn't oi?!" he snapped, turning around and then blinking. Really, he couldn't remember seeing Doumeki in anything other than his school uniform or shrine robes or hakama, so it was a bit startling to see the muscular boy wearing loose, comfortable cargo pants and leather jacket.

"Where'd you get those?"

"The jacket was a present from my grandmother on my mother's side. I never saw her much, since she didn't really approve or believe in the supernatural stuff, but every year she sends me gifts on Christmas and my birthday. She never liked my grandfather."

"Haruka-san, you mean?"

"Yeah. He was my grandfather on my father's side."

Doumeki's eyes looked him over once…twice…a full three times before he reached out to grab Watanuki's hand and lead him away from the edge of the park, which had been their meeting place. In embarrassment, Watanuki jerked his hand from his boyfriend's and shoved it back in his jacket pockets, lest they freeze. Honestly, he got cold too easy…

"Stop staring at my ass."

"…I'm not."

"Yes you are," he countered and glared over his shoulder at the archer, who had fallen slightly behind him.

Doumeki met his gaze without a hint of remorse and shrugged. "Well, then you shouldn't have worn such tight pants." Apparently not giving up, he reached over to pull Watanuki's hand back into his, but this time, shoved it in his own jacket pocket.

Watanuki gave up after that, not bothering to try to pull away a second time, especially since he rather liked holding hands. "So where are we going?"

"Secret."

He would have left it at that, but there was the faintest of growls in that tone and he looked up the taller boy. "What's the matter? You mad about something?"

In answer, Doumeki tugged him closer by pulling their combined hands closer to his chest and he left a warm kiss on the bespectacled boy's head. "You're not allowed to wear those pants when I'm not around."

"What?! Why the hell should I?!" he snapped. "These are one of my only pairs of non-formal pants and I've had them for years. They're _comfortable_."

"You are then, apparently, missing all the stares you're getting. I'm not the only one that's contemplating how good your ass is."

Watanuki's face flushed red and he attempted to step on Doumeki's foot, except the boy seemed to anticipate this move and avoided it. "You _ass!_" He opened and closed his mouth, trying to find a way to yell his indignation, but nothing was coming up. Who _knew_ that Doumeki would be so…so…was this the real Doumeki? Was this the person his stoic mask always hid? It gave him a flash of pleasure to know he may be the only person who had ever seen it.

"We're here."

Watanuki, who'd been lost in thought, looked up and literally gaped at the auditorium before him. "What is this?!"

Doumeki pulled out tickets from his other pocket and showed it to his boyfriend. "I noticed that when I was in your apartment a while ago that Gackt was your favorite singer, since you have so many cds of him. I have it on good authority that he'll be singing Redemption, among other songs."

A concert?! His jaw nearly hit the ground and he could only stare at the tickets in shock for a few minutes. "Re-Redemption?!" he gasped. That was his _favorite_ song. His floored blue eyes finally met the satisfied gaze of his boyfriend and before he could help it, he had thrown his arms around Doumeki's chest and was hugging him with all his strength, regardless of the people around them.

"Thank you," he muttered under his breath. He'd never been to a concert before, much like how he never went to the movies: too many spirits and there was too much work to do at home. Now to go to his first one and to have one of his favorite singers…it was a dream come true that he'd never entertained the likelihood of.

Doumeki's lips turned upward slightly in a smile at the pure joy on Watanuki's face and the kiss they shared was perhaps the most happiest one yet. By the time it ended, Watanuki's enthusiasm for the concert could hardly be contained and he was already turning toward the entrance of the auditorium when Doumeki caught his hand.

"Not that way."

"But everyone is going in that way…" he protested. "If we don't hurry, it'll start without us…"

"We go this way."

Watanuki whimpered a little when he thought about missing even a single second of the concert, but Doumeki was tugging him insistently toward the side to where some of the concert workers were gathered. He could only watch in confusion when Doumeki handed the tickets over and after only a glance, they were ushered in a side entrance and led to one of the first rows of people inside the auditorium.

"H-how did you get front row seats?" he screeched over the yelling of the crowd who were eagerly awaiting the appearance of their favorite singer.

"Tell you later," Doumeki whispered in right in his ear, even licking it teasingly, and even then, his words were almost drowned out.

Watanuki would have yelled at him if he could have been heard and if at that moment, the lights hadn't swiveled toward the stage and illuminated the figure of Gackt. He swallowed when that microphone was lifted and the first bars of Redemption echoed throughout the hall.

It was the most immersing experience that Watanuki had ever had in his life and throughout it all, he couldn't help his hand tightly gripping that of Doumeki's, even when his palms began to get sweaty and the body heat from all the people began to make him too warm in his jacket. He knew that he'd never, ever forget the concert or the fact that his first date had been such a wonderful thing.

"So how _did_ you get front row tickets?" he asked, two hours later when they were strolling leisurely down the street and watching as the sun sink ever so slowly toward the horizon.

"My grandmother."

"The one on your mother's side?" he gaped. "How did _she_ get tickets?"

Doumeki scratched his head a bit and though the expression on his face didn't change, Watanuki got the impression that he was a bit embarrassed to admit it. "Well…she's rich. My grandfather on my mother's side had built a huge music and record company, one of the largest in Japan, but when he died, he had it pass to my grandmother. Gackt, I don't think, is signed up to them, but Grandmother expanded the company so much as well that it's become something of a tradition to sponsor concerts for particularly popular artists twice a year. When I heard that she had sponsored Gackt, I remembered you had a whole lot of cds, so…I asked for tickets."

"And she just…_gave_ you front row tickets? How'd she get them?" He wanted to ask what Doumeki had to give in return. After working for almost a year for Yuuko, he knew that nothing came for free.

"It's in return for sponsoring the concert, select board members and my grandmother got two front row tickets to do with what they wish."

"And…? What did you have to do to get them? I don't get the impression that you're on particularly good enough terms for it to just be a gift."

"I…have to go meet her. I haven't actually _seen_ her in many years and she wanted to meet me."

"Oh, that's all?" Perhaps it was because of seeing the heavy prices of Yuuko's customers, he had unconsciously thought it was going to be a whole lot worse. "Well, that's not too bad."

"I want you to go with me."

"Yes, you want me to—_you want me to what?!_"

"I want you to go with me. I want to introduce you to her."

Watanuki could think of all _sorts_ of problems that could arise if he did that. For one, Doumeki's grandmother might get so angry that they were thrown out and she'd never have any contact with Doumeki again. She might even try to break them apart. If she had the kind of power that he thought she had after hearing everything about her, it would be so easy to crush him like a bug.

But when Doumeki's golden eyes touched his, with an almost begging look to let him have their relationship acknowledged, he couldn't argue. His shoulders slumped and he muttered, "Fine. But on one condition."

"What?"

He looked up and stopped walking. "You call me by my name," he said seriously. They were dating even and he wanted his boyfriend to acknowledge _him_ by saying his name. He wanted to hear the way his name rolled off of Doumeki's tongue. How Doumeki's voice savored its texture.

A soft smile touched those demanding lips. "All right…Kimihiro."

** End **


	12. Chapter 11: White Lies

"Something's bothering you, Watanuki," she said, as she lounged. She'd just gotten out of a steamy bath and was feeling quite mellow about the world at the moment. Her fingers lazily toyed with a chess piece as she watched Mokona screw his little mouth in an unhappy way when he debated what move he would like to do.

Watanuki's heavy sigh attracted her attention and languid eyes shifted from the board to her part-time employee. He didn't bother denying it and she wondered if it was really that bad. She didn't bother shifting from her stomach, since she was quite comfortable, thank you, but she did turn her face to look at him more clearly, to show she did have interest.

"Well…" he muttered, "remember the date that Doumeki and I had? In return for getting the tickets, he has to go meet his grandmother…and he wants me to go."

"So?"

"S-so?! Yuuko-san, we're what you could consider a _gay couple_!" Watanuki snapped, whirling to face her. "This woman is head of a music conglomerate! If she doesn't like this, like _me_, she could crush me instantly with her might. She has that kind of power!"

Unlike what Watanuki believed, she didn't know _everything_. In fact, half the things he took for granted that she knew, she didn't, but since he told her everything _anyway_, she saw no need to correct him. However, she was getting a bad feeling about this whole thing. It was just setting her teeth on edge and that usually meant impending doom. Could it be that this could end up destroying all her work of getting her part-time helper happiness?

She was not about to let all her hard work go to waste, especially since it wasn't easy to bring Watanuki happiness. For one, she had to work around the worst problem of all: Watanuki himself. But she was finally getting somewhere and this didn't bode well. She had to look out for him not only in the spiritual world, but the regular one too. Sometimes she thought it was tiresome, but most of the time, she was content. In truth, as much as she teased and gave him a hard time, he never failed to bring her a smile and contrary to what he thought, it was very hard to get her to smile because there were very rarely things to smile about in her line of work.

But she merely gave a disinterested shrug that she didn't feel and turned back to her chess game, saying, "Just be confident in your relationship with Doumeki-kun when you go there. Confidence will get you a lot of places, Watanuki, even when you shouldn't be there. That's what detectives use, same the way with criminals."

"Ugh, you don't care at all!" Watanuki bellowed and stomped out of the room. When he was gone, her serious eyes met Mokona's and she knew he was thinking the same thing.

Well, this proved that while potentially bad, it could have some fun consequences too.

****

When Watanuki saw the huge building a week later, he wished he hadn't come. It was only Doumeki's grip on his hand that kept him from turning tail and running away. Unlike what he had expected, this was not going to be a talk at the woman's mansion, but straight at the main office of the record company.

He gulped and expected to be thrown out any minute when he stepped foot in the main lobby. The floor and pillars just _had_ to be made of marble, it looked like that sort of stone, and the secretary behind the desk gave them a superior look. After much debate, he had managed to get Doumeki to agree to wear their school uniforms for the meeting. It wasn't casual, nor formal, so it would be the least likely thing to offend.

Plus, it couldn't hurt to subtly remind this woman that he was still a student, if she thought she was going to be his enemy and crush him.

"My name is Doumeki Shizuka. I have an appointment with my grandmother, Tokizawa Mika."

Suspiciously, the secretary began to type on her computer, obviously bringing up some kind of schedule for the day or perhaps week. He could see out of the corner of his eye guards dressed in black suits and wondered if the place really needed such overwhelming security. His palm felt hot and sweaty and it was getting harder to hold onto his boyfriend's hand.

"Tokizawa-sama should be waiting for you on the fiftieth floor. Please go up."

Doumeki tugged him and he managed to get his wobbly knees to move. The whole building had an oppressive feel to it. He couldn't see any black smoke or anything, but a few times here and there, he could feel the greed that sometimes seeped out, left over from some artist or agent only concerned with making money.

The elevators were glass affairs, letting him see more and more of the city as they rose. It was very good that he wasn't afraid of heights, otherwise he'd probably be clinging to Doumeki for dear life. He shivered a little when it reminded him that he had once been an archangel. Sometimes what he wouldn't give for a pair of wings…

The dinging of the elevator signaling their floor aroused his attention from his contemplation of the city that sprawled endlessly below him. They were that much closer to this woman and his stomach decided it wanted to tie itself in knots all over again. He wanted to drag his heels about the whole thing, but he knew that if he did that, Doumeki would know how much he _didn't_ want to be here.

There was nobody on the floor; they passed nobody on their way to the biggest double doors he had ever seen in a corporate building. Was this floor strictly for this woman's private use? That made his apprehension all the worse.

"Come in," came an old but strong voice after Doumeki had wrapped twice on the chestnut-colored, pure wooden door. Not many were made that way anymore. It was far less expensive for cheaper, not so heavy wood, not only in monetary value but also in the value of the ecology.

His first impression of this woman was that she should be wearing a kimono. Her hair was white, tied tightly in a bun at the back of her head, and she had her share of wrinkles, but the eyes that watched the two boys missed nothing. She wore a two-piece suit, the skirt falling to her ankles, which was odd for female-business attire. Perhaps she too felt that she should be wearing a kimono, but knowing that a kimono would be out of place in a workforce such as this, had chosen to have a custom-made suit such as that to assuage those feelings.

"I expected it would just be you, Shizuka-kun. Who is this you brought me?" She gestured to the chairs in front of her desk and obligingly they sat down.

Her voice was strong and clear, sounding as if she was a very strict woman and mother. One who believed very strongly in their morals and what was necessary and what had to be done and nothing would change her way of living.

Mindful of the advice Yuuko had given him, he swallowed his first impulse to stutter and tried to speak in his most even and confident tone. "My name is Watanuki Kimihiro." He wanted to add that he was Doumeki's classmate, but he was afraid that would offend Doumeki if he wanted their relationship to be disclosed. The safest thing would be to just introduce himself and add nothing else.

"Why would you bring your friend when I asked you to come to look at o-mai photos?"

_O-mai?! What the hell?! Doumeki **knew** about this whole o-mai thing?! Then what the hell did he ask me here for?!_ Trying to control his anger, to not send a blistering glare at his boyfriend's way, was hard to do and if he hadn't let go of Doumeki's hand when they had entered, he would have snatched it away at that moment.

"That's exactly why I brought him here with me."

"I am not clear what you're trying to say, Shizuka-kun. Please explain the correlation."

"Kimihiro is my boyfriend. I won't be getting married to anyone from an o-mai."

He could only admire in a shocked, 'you-are-so-dead' way that Doumeki baldly stated it to such a straight-laced woman. Her face was as controlled as her grandson's and her spine stiffened a little, but she showed no other outward emotions of her indignation and outrage. Her eyes, though, were full of fire as they touched Watanuki's and if it hadn't been for dealing with Yuuko for almost a year, he would have looked away.

He'd faced things a helluva lot scarier than this woman…though she was getting up there as one of the scariest things.

"Watanuki Kimihiro, what does your family do?"

His answer, obviously, would determine his status to this woman and if she would make any and all efforts to crush their relationship and him along with it. Obviously saying that his parents were dead was not going to be good enough and he'd never lie about his parents. He was too proud of them.

Watanuki was about to take a deep breath and answer, when a voice he knew really, really, _really_ well effectively took away his role in the whole discussion.

"His mother grants wishes."

Yuuko strode into the room like she owned it. He had half-expected her to be wearing her supernatural robes, the one she wore when Syaoran's group had arrived, but she had decided on her best suit. The black skirt feel to her knees and the jacket was fashionably loose, with splotches of red and purple on the edges of both pieces. The black heels she wore made her seem almost abnormally tall and she was a tall woman regardless of that. Her hair was loose with no strange designs and fell to her knees. The aura she radiated made Doumeki's grandmother unconsciously straighten in her chair.

Two very powerful women had just met each other, like wolves on a mountain path, and they did not like others treading on their territory.

"Kimihiro is my son and he will eventually succeed in my business."

"And you are?"

"Ichihara Yuuko."

"Then pray tell me why your names do not match."

"After my husband died, I took back my maiden name." He felt his throat constrict in shock at how smoothly the lies flowed out of Yuuko's mouth and just how _believable_ they were. If he didn't know better, he'd have had no doubts. "Kimihiro chose to keep his father's name of his own accord."

"You seem awfully young to be the mother of such an old boy."

There was a bit of suspicion in her eyes and she folded her arms across her chest. Watanuki glanced at Doumeki, but his eyes were riveted on the powerful women that were facing off against each other. The two boys were long since forgotten in the midst of the verbal battle and he could almost see their minds jumping ahead like a freeway, thinking of everything the other would do before they did it. It was amazing and intimidating. Yuuko would be a holy terror to go up against in the business world just from her aura of confidence all around.

"And what exactly do you mean, you grant wishes?"

"Exactly what I said, but perhaps you need it to be explained clearer. You should already know the supernatural exists, as your daughter married the son of a very powerful exorcist. And your grandson is quite powerful in that regard as well. Daily his powers grow, though I do believe he can't see the spirits that he exorcises. My son has a habit of spirits being attracted to him. He can see them but his powers do not run in the direction of enabling him to exorcise them himself. You could say that Doumeki-kun is his protection. They fit very well together."

Tokizawa's suspicious eyes studied the two high school boys for a long time while she listened, but when they turned back to the Dimensional Witch, they still demanded an explanation to her question. A faint amused and superior smile stretched the beautiful woman's lips.

"I run a shop that is not quite here in this world. I can grant any wish, so long as the payment is of equal value to that being asked for."

"Monetary?"

"Sometimes. If money is valued by the customer and the _attachment_ to the money is equal to the wish that they want, I will take that, but I mostly deal with objects or outcomes as the…currency."

Finally, Doumeki's grandmother sighed after another moment of contemplation. "You have shown me no proof of anything. Either way, I do not approve of this relationship."

"Whether you try to force an o-mai on your grandson or not is none of my affair," Yuuko said at last, and that superior smile was gone to be replaced by a strict and powerful look in her eyes. It reminded him of the expression she wore when she had destroyed the picture of the woman who had pushed her friend off the cliff and she'd told her that her price had been what she had decided.

"However, you are affecting my son and I do not take kindly to your veiled hints of destroying his happiness with Doumeki-kun. I am a powerful woman with many contacts in a world that you refuse to acknowledge. It is best you do not make an enemy of me."

Tokizawa stood and their wills clashed invisibly over the desk between the two women, with neither giving way. Watanuki would, naturally, give her a huge lecture for claiming that he was her son, but at the moment, he was too awestruck and intimidated to even think of what he might say. She had the same kind of determination he'd seen in her when she'd taken on the task of saving his life and destroying the crown.

"I see that you are a strong woman," Doumeki's grandmother said at last, finally breaking a silence that had become heavy with power. "However, I cannot allow this relationship to be if it will tarnish the family name."

"There will be no such thing," Yuuko quickly returned. "Kimihiro is a very upright boy and very polite. No one, meeting him, could find fault with his manners. He is also a very sweet and sensitive young man, who cares for those around him. He is lively to a degree, but that only shows his happiness and that he can enjoy life. Naturally, there will be some disagreement with the fact that they are in a relationship, regardless of character, but since Doumeki-kun is sharing his father and grandfather's name, it will not tarnish yours. Someone would have no reason to be looking for a connection between 'Doumeki' and 'Tokizawa' unless they were hinted at."

The old businesswoman sighed and the tense atmosphere relaxed a smidgeon. For the first time since he entered the office, Watanuki saw a smile cross the woman's face. "You remind me forcibly of Doumeki Haruka, Shizuka's paternal grandfather. He had a strong character like you and knew how to do business."

Yuuko smiled slightly in return. "Thank you. That is quite a compliment, coming from someone who does not seem to like the Doumeki family and that particularly of Doumeki-kun's grandfather."

Tokizawa blinked and he saw surprise flitter over her face. "What do you mean?"

"Well according to my son, when Doumeki-kun spoke to Kimihiro about you and your relationship with his family, he had gotten the impression that you quite disliked Doumeki Haruka."

Doumeki's grandmother laughed a little and sat back down slowly. "It is not that I disliked him, but Haruka-san and I had…a history together."

"History?"

"We went to school together and perhaps you could say that I liked him romantically at one time. But I could not reconcile with his belief about the supernatural and the duties of the shrine he grew up at. In the end, I never told him my feelings and we parted on good terms at graduation. My feelings faded in time. I disapproved of my Keiko's marriage with Haruka-san's son mostly because of status and what she was used to, but because I felt that she was in love, I didn't argue heatedly nor truly prevent her from doing what she wanted. My husband was too busy at work to notice much of anything else around him."

"Did you ever visit your daughter while Haruka-san still lived?"

She shook her head at Yuuko's question. "No. It was not that I feared things would be awkward. We parted on the best of terms one can have when you are friends in high school. I just felt that it would put undue pressure and stress on Keiko's husband. I did not want him to feel as if he had to impress me because of the wealth that I had, and that had once been Keiko's." She smiled slightly again. "I am not truly a cold woman, despite appearances. I was raised with a strict mother who believed in strong but silent women and that is what I am. Or was, until my husband died and against all odds, willed his business to me. I have been running it as president since then."

Blinking caught his attention and he glanced at the contemporary phone on the woman's beautiful, mahogany desk. She noticed it as well and as discreetly as possible turned back to the three people gathered in her office. "I'm afraid my tale is at its end and there's little left to say. I am not a complex woman, nor are my motives. I just thought it was perhaps time to get Shizuka-kun thinking about his future."

"And to be involved in his life a little more?" Yuuko murmured. "Perhaps, if you want to do that, why don't you visit his home during Christmas or some other holiday, slowly at first and get used to the son-in-law and grandson you have left."

Yuuko gestured at the two boys to stand and regally headed for the door when Tokizawa spoke one last time. "One thing, Shizuka-kun. Your mother had a trust fund we gave her that has grown exponentially since its conception and with her death, it is in your name. It will be yours when you turn eighteen."

Doumeki only nodded and then the doors shut behind them.

****

"_Yuuko-san!!_ You _lied_ to that woman! I'm not your son!!"

Doumeki plugged his ears lightly as Watanuki turned full force his displeasure against his employer. The intimidating and serious look on her face had disappeared once they'd left the building and her silly smile was back as she watched the waving arms of the fool employee.

"Come now, Watanuki. It was just _one_ little lie. The rest I said was entirely true. It won't hurt anything and it helped your situation, didn't it? This is a woman who was taught old school and opinions of a person are based on their family. She thinks highly of you and respects you, so what's the problem?"

"What if she checks on it?! What if she finds out?! Didn't you say lying was bad?!"

"She won't check it out. She has no reason to, as she believed it. And if you lie, it's best to surround it with truth. And I said 'words have power'. I never said anything about lying."

"…You will _never_ be a role model," the bespectacled boy sighed and his shoulders slumped.

He knew it was going to happen and prepared himself when said boy suddenly whirled on him. It was his turn, huh? Yuuko had been given her lecture and he had known the moment he'd mentioned the visit in the first place that he was going to get it.

"And _you_!! How dare you drag me there and not bother to _mention_ that your grandmother wanted you there for an o-mai! Do you know how _awkward_ I felt sitting there when I heard?! Why didn't you _tell_ me?!"

"You never asked."

"You--!!"

Doumeki reached out to cup his boyfriend's cheeks, kissing him lovingly, and effectively derailing the rant that was assaulting his ears. "I wanted to bring you with me so that she could see that I was serious and I wasn't going to get married because I have you. I did it for _you_."

Yuuko's smile was pleased at Watanuki's back as the cheeks filled with a blush of said boy. All the fight seemed drain out of his boyfriend and he merely pulled away, crossed his arms, and muttered something under his breath, but Doumeki knew that meant that he was forgiven.

"Now, since we're all the way here, let's get something to eat and some SAKE!"

"_**Would you knock it off with the alcohol?!**_"

** End **


	13. Chapter 12: Mistakes

Watanuki found that he was having a hard time reconciling with himself that he was once an archangel. Some tingling sense in him told him that the incident with the crown nearly a month ago was not going to be over just yet. The dreams he was having lately weren't memories or dreams of Kami and Xhaiden, though. They were indescribable, filled with dark shadows and red splashes that looked remarkably like dried blood.

The rate the dreams came was becoming more frequent too. At first, it was only in the deep night when he was asleep that he would be assaulted with them, but when he stopped sleeping at night because of them, when he would take a nap during the day they would appear to him. Yuuko had once said that his dreams tended to lean more toward prophetic than anything else, which he supposed he agreed with. It was the only way to, for example, explain that strange dream he'd had about Himawari just before he'd sacrificed eye for his boyfriend.

He just hoped that this dream wasn't prophetic. He didn't understand the fact that he was always standing in darkness and was unable to see. For some reason, tears were always streaming from his eyes and he never moved. He only stared at the inky blackness above him where the sky should be, and under his feet, it seemed he was standing on black water. There was no light to be seen except for that of his tears and his white skin stood out like a beacon. An aching sadness filled his whole being and he was trembling for an unknown reason.

A strange calmness surrounded him, urging him to do nothing but stand there. When he dreamed this terror, he found it harder and harder to find his way out of the dream and remember it wasn't reality. Dark circles slowly began to stain under his eyes as the nights got worse and worse with his twisting and turning. Desperately he tried to find some sort of clue that would explain his dream. Usually in prophetic dreams, wasn't there something that hinted at the real world? That would tell him what it was pertaining to? Just…_something_, but there was nothing to explain it. He was left feeling empty and dissatisfied with the world.

It became easier to agitate him and he found that he was yelling more at Doumeki than was usual, especially since they had started dating, they had gotten along better ever so slowly. It didn't help that more often than not, when he went to work, Yuuko would sometimes give him a contemplating look. She'd often asked if something was worrying him, but some impulse held him silent and he said he was fine.

He didn't want to tell anyone about the dream. It was his and his alone. It belonged to him.

Very little could penetrate his reverie and the breeze ruffled his hair. His pale and haggard face was still of emotions and his gaze was far away, as if he were somewhere else entirely. Despite his frail appearance, he looked beautifully elegant. He didn't notice that he was getting thinner, even though he was eating the same amount as usual every day.

"Watanuki-kun?"

Watanuki finally blinked and turned to look at Himawari. That day, Doumeki was spending extra time doing archery practice, so he was left alone with her. He managed to give her a tired smile, but even when she smiled back, he could still see the concern in her eyes.

"I'm fine. Just a little tired."

"Why don't you take a nap during lunch then? I'll wake you when the bell rings."

"Thank you, Himawari-chan. I think I'll take you up on that."

She watched as curled up on the grass and she lent him her lap. As soon as his eyes closed and his breathing changed to a sleeper's, she snatched out her cell phone from her bag. She had been watching him closely the last few days and his abnormal behavior was like a warning signal to her. She was sure Doumeki had noticed, but he was probably still indecisive if it was something other than stress.

Himawari dearly loved her friends and she would not allow what happened last time to be this time. She wasn't going to be the only one out of the loop and watch in helpless horror as Watanuki started to bleed uncontrollably. If she could take Watanuki's scars upon her own body as payment, she could do anything necessary. If that was the purpose of her existence, to help either Watanuki or Doumeki, then she could smile and endure anything.

Thanks to the last incident with Watanuki's hand, Yuuko's number was on speed-dial. The phone was picked up on the first ring, as if she had expected a call, and the cool, collected voice of the older woman filtered to her.

_"Something's wrong, isn't it?"_

"I don't like how Watanuki-kun's looking. He's looking paler. Right now he's sleeping, but it doesn't look peaceful. And he's getting thinner…"

_"I know. I think I have a guess as to what this might be."_ There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone and Himawari waiting with breathlessness to know if she could help in some way. She hated feeling as if she was being left behind. _"Contact Doumeki-kun and bring Watanuki to my shop as soon as possible. You both should be able to enter."_

There was a click and the dial tone sounded loudly in her ear, but she merely snapped her phone shut and very carefully shifted Watanuki off of her lap. She hoped he'd sleep soundly enough while she was gone. Yuuko didn't say anything about him needing to be asleep or anything, but some instinct told her not to wake him. Perhaps it was the oddly cruel set of his lips, the coldness his expression radiated.

That was not the Watanuki she knew.

Her feet were already pounding on the ground as she began to rush to the archery range. Ignoring the others, regardless that Doumeki had his bow taunt; she padded up to him and touched his arm, trying her best so that nothing bad, such as the string snapping back at him, would happen.

"Yuuko-san said to bring Watanuki-kun to her shop now."

"She called you?"

Himawari hesitated. "No, I called her. Watanuki-kun hasn't been himself lately and I was worried."

Only dropping a single sentence that he was leaving to his coach, Doumeki followed her insistence. When she returned to their lunch area, Watanuki was still asleep, but when Doumeki saw the expression on the young boy's face, apparently he agreed with the unlucky girl.

Watanuki would never wear such a cruel smile on his face.

****

"I think there may be a little bit of poison still left in his system from the crown that's been very slowly active," Yuuko explained, touching Watanuki's sleeping forehead calmly with her cool fingertips. He was burning up, as if he had a fever, but there was no hint of any other cold. Himawari looked to be fretting away her sanity and the tenseness of Doumeki's whole boy radiated his concern.

"Seems to me that it's been still working since I destroyed the crown, but its symptoms and effects were so minimal at first that even Watanuki didn't notice, much less us."

"What can we do about it?"

She pursed her lips tightly and crossed her arms. The last thing she wanted to say, but she had to. "I don't know."

It had been many, many centuries since she had ever come across a problem that she had no idea how to solve. Perhaps this was hitsuzen, a punishment for being too cocky of her power over the last few years. Maybe it was for the fact that she had gotten too attached to her little helper. Part of her really wished that Watanuki had been her son. If you got to look past the first layers of disagreeableness, you could see the beautiful soul that Watanuki possessed. By nature, he was a kind and sweet child, who should be given more to smiles than scowls. It was only through circumstances that that person who he truly was, was buried so deep.

"At the moment," she continued in the oppressive silence, "the only thing I can think of is to 'siphon' off the poison and into some other vessel. It is magical in nature, so the container would have to be magical." Her gaze touched Larg, who looked back at her without fear. Could he do it? Could he swallow and make a container for it? It would be easy for Soel, since he _increased_ magical powers, but could Larg when he was made to suppress it?

As if reading her thoughts, Larg nodded silently.

It took very little preparation to set up the protection barrier so that her shop didn't get destroyed if something went wrong, and an hour later, she was sitting next to the body of her employee with Larg on her lap.

"Are you sure this will work, Yuuko-san?"

She glanced at the trembling figure of Himawari and frowned a little. "I don't know." She really _hated_ working blind. After so long, she had forgotten the feeling and now that she remembered it, she also remembered why she had hated it so much. So much could go _wrong…_ She'd have to think on her feet really quickly if it did.

Much like when she had destroyed the crown, her power built around her and lifted her loose hair up to twine in the air. The butterfly designs on her kimono seemed to glow on their own, and in response, Watanuki began to glow a dirty gray color. She frowned more deeply, as that was unexpected, and her hand reached out to coolly touch the burning skin of the unconscious boy.

Taking another deep breath and, receiving a nod from Larg that he was ready, she attempted to draw the dirty gray aura toward the little creature in her lap. At first it seemed to be working, but just as she began to think that success was hers, it backfired. Her simple barrier, set up only for the most minor of power bursts to contain, shattered instantly and for the first time in her life, she was actually sent flying across the room to slam into her reclining sofa.

"_Yuuko-san!_"

Himawari was already at her side, but when Yuuko blinked the shock and pain from her eyes as she lay in the rubble of her sofa, she realized her huge mistake. She had made a huge error in judgment. "What's happening, Yuuko-san?!"

There in the middle of the room stood Watanuki, the ugly and unhealthy gray aura around him palatable of something very close to evil. His eyes were no longer their beautiful and deep sapphire color. His right eye, the one he shared with his boyfriend, was of the purest white; his left was the color of inky, tainted blackness. His appearance was made even more startling when his skin was the purest of alabaster.

He stood up straight and tall, and shockingly of all, there were wings sprouting from his back, having destroyed his shirt and jacket in the process. They were not like the wings of the creatures that stole souls, but angel wings, only…his right wing was purest white and his left ugly and black. The feathers on the right were smooth and full and looked soft to the touch. The left was mangled and tattered, the feathers missing or out of place, as if it had gone through a fight.

A cruel smile touched that pretty face as he turned to look at the prostrate Dimensional Witch and suddenly his long, elegant fingers seemed even more so. Nails were longer, sharper, almost like claws. His lips almost seemed blood red as he lifted a single claw-like nail to run lightly over the baby-soft texture, and a black tongue flickered out briefly, showing sharp, canine teeth.

"Kimihiro…"

Regardless of the dangerous appearance and aura of Watanuki, Doumeki stood up and began approaching the figure that was once his boyfriend. His attention caught by the word and movement, the…person turned to look at the archer. As if some memories remained of the love they had, Watanuki's body welcomed the boy close until he was being held.

There was a hiss of pain as one of those razor sharp nails lifted and ran over Doumeki's cheek, creating a thin cut in the tanned skin. Light trails of red blood ran down toward the boy's jaw and as if mesmerized, Watanuki's black, forked tongue flicked out to lap and drink those stray droplets.

"Kimihiro…please come back to me."

The only response was the cruel smile grew wider and those nails were readying to make more cuts. Himawari had apparently screwed up her courage and attempted to approach the boys to stop it, but unlike Doumeki, she was flung against the wall before she got three steps nearer. Yuuko's eyes had been silently speaking with Larg and the little creature had worked his way over to surround Watanuki's body in a pincher movement without notice.

"You will _not_ defile my shop," she ordered and when the distracted attention of whatever Watanuki had become looked at her, she lifted her hand. What seemed to be purple streaks of power, resembling swords, somehow managed to get between the two boys and flung them both apart. Doumeki landed hard on the ground on his back, while Watanuki's body merely stumbled. Larg's mouth opened and swallowed the purple swords only to cough them back up in a crystallized form. Faster than the eye could blink, they surrounded the intimidating figure and slammed into the floorboards.

With a cruel and detached curiosity, a long-fingered hand reached out to touch one of the swords, but with a crackle of white lightning, it shrieked in pain and pulled back. Several times it tried again to get out from the circle of ten swords, but finally gave up. The malice in the discolored eyes was unambiguous and potent and fully focused on her.

"What the hell is going on? What's wrong with Kimihiro?"

Yuuko stood up slowly and painfully amid Doumeki's gruff, demanding voice. It had been a very long time since she had been hit with anything physical that she had forgotten how much it hurt to be thrown in a job. The shuffling behind her told her that Himawari was awake and attempting to stand up.

"That's _not_ Watanuki. That is actually some of the essence of the crown that was forced into his body."

"But you said that it was the poison remnants!" Himawari protested.

Yuuko's eyes narrowed, never breaking the stare of Watanuki's cruel gaze. "I was wrong."

** End **


	14. Chapter 13: Beginning of the End

Yuuko watched what was a metaphorical black thundercloud in the middle of her barrier and continued to frown. The part of the malevolence the crown had injected into a defenseless Watanuki squatted evilly there and had no intention of leaving. She'd tried several things that had had no effect whatsoever on the thing.

What bothered her most about the whole situation was that this was Watanuki, who had once been an archangel. It _shouldn't_ have been this easy for it to take control like this. Perhaps, in truth, he hadn't even been injected with a poison, which she had originally thought about it, but the bleeding and the condition that Watanuki had been in was a _side-effect_ of the battle going on with Watanuki's soul and its properties of archangel against the crown's personality.

But that was all speculation. Either way, it did not explain why the crown had managed to gain control of her employee so easily. She glanced out of the corner of her eye at Himawari, but she couldn't account this as the girl's particular 'problem' to what was happening now with Watanuki.

She turned from the room and went out to the garden. Doumeki hadn't left Watanuki's side in the whole time, but no matter how many times he tried, nothing was bringing Watanuki's soul back to the forefront that easily. She had no doubt that Watanuki's soul was still in there somewhere, but getting to it was certainly the problem.

The cold, winter air was a blessing after being cooped up in her shop after so long. It almost seemed that the crown was raising the temperature to a stiflingly still, hot summer night. Apparently the crown was fascinated with Doumeki, which was another problem. He was completely focused on the exorcist and would have probably been drinking the boy's blood and probably raping him at the same time.

Was this because it sensed that Doumeki's soul had once been one of its many masters before it had been sealed? Did it have some sort of sick and twisted sense of loyalty?

So far, Watanuki hadn't spoken a word. Yuuko didn't even know if it could. After being in the form of a crown for its entire existence, perhaps it didn't know how to use the vocal cords to talk. In any case, it appeared as if it really loved having a human body, by the unholy light in its eyes.

Mokona waddled to her side on the porch and held up her pipe. With a grateful smile, she lit it and took a very long pull on the tobacco. It had been three hours since it had all happened and it appeared as if she were in a stalemate. She couldn't let loose her full power without a wish, which would entail exacting a price from someone, and it would likely be as heavy the wish the pipe-fox spirit had paid a month ago for Watanuki's life.

Damn, all this because of her mistake. It galled and humbled her that she hadn't made the right call when it had really mattered. Many would have said that in her long life and that of the time that she had been working with Watanuki that only one mistake of hers was a very good thing, but that wasn't good enough for her. She shouldn't have made a mistake in the first place. Watanuki had counted on her and she had ended up failing him. Because of her failure, someone who wanted to help Watanuki was going to be paying a high price that if she had called the problem right that they wouldn't have had to pay. She felt like a doctor who had made a misdiagnosis and someone was going to die because of it.

"Yuuko-san?"

She glanced up when Himawari padded to her side and sat on the edge of the porch. "Can't stay there any longer?"

"Yuuko-san, you know of a way to help Watanuki-kun?"

Well, she just dived right into it, hadn't she? She looked back at her gardenias and reached out to run a finger along the heavy, white petals. She'd always been partial to the smell of gardenias and had been the first flower she'd planted in her garden when she'd taken up residence.

"There is a way," she said at last, "but it is not one to be taken likely and if it's used, there will be a lot of sadness afterwards."

"What is it?"

"It entails a sacrifice."

"What kind of sacrifice?"

Yuuko got the sneaking suspicion she knew where this was going by the fact that Himawari wasn't looking at her. Did this girl even understand the weight of what a sacrifice was, even with her particular problem? Harshly and bluntly, she said, "A human sacrifice. We would need another vessel to transfer the crown's influence to and that person would have to have a very strong will and strong feelings for Watanuki."

"Why?"

Still not looking at her. Yuuko shrugged. "Basically, the sacrifice would be giving up their entire life. In all essences, the body would be dead, but the soul would be trapped inside of with the soul of the person. There would be a constant struggle between the crown and the will of the soul of the person who chose that path. They would have to have absolutely _no_ doubt in their mind that they wanted to do this. One single moment's hesitation could mean the crown could win and take over. If that were to happen, another sacrifice would be needed and have to be transferred. The process would repeat itself."

"Couldn't you just transfer the crown into someone else and then…kill that person? That way there would be no chance that the crown could gain control."

Finally, the older woman looked at the teenage girl next to her. "First of all, it would be very, very difficult to kill someone the crown had taken over. Second, taking the life of someone is extremely heavy burden. Third, since most sacrifices tend to be loved ones or friends of the one possessed, there is very little chance that someone would have the strength to kill that person."

When Himawari didn't say anything, she added, "Before you make your decision and come to me, think about what will happen to Watanuki when he finds out what happened to you if you want this. Watanuki's grief knows no bounds and he cares about very few people because many die on him. How much do you care about him? Would you rather him live and know that you sacrificed yourself for his sake?"

With that, she stood up and left the teenager out in the garden to think long and hard about her decision. She was used to this sort of thing, as Watanuki had a self-sacrificing attitude and it wasn't until recently that he had begun to think about what other people would feel if he got injured for them. She wanted to make sure that if that was what Himawari truly wanted, that she would have not one single regret, as that would turn the battle against the crown and she would lose.

If the crown truly did get a body, then the world as they knew it would be ending very soon. Destruction was the only possible outcome concerned with that damn crown. The worst body it could be in would be Watanuki's. Himawari was a risk if she chose that route, since her body affected everyone around her unconsciously. With the evil of the crown running through her, her power would be heightened and such tragedies would be happening so much worse than the time Watanuki fell through the window and on a much larger scale.

It was the first time that Yuuko had come across an enemy as cunning and dangerous as this one and after so many years of being so powerful, she wondered for the first time if she would lose.

****

Doumeki was just as she had left him and the Dimensional Witch watched the two silent boys from the doorway. There was something cruelly seductive about the way that the crown was twisting Watanuki's lips. There was definitely a carnal bent to it, but also a malicious hunger for blood in that black eye. In a repelling and yet compelling way, that forked tongue was licking teasingly one long, claw-like fingernail, eyes fixed on the exorcist, who showed no expression as usual.

With the two separate colors of white and black, Yuuko could only conclude that there was indeed still a battle waging. That the crown hadn't gained _complete_ control over Watanuki just yet.

Turning from the doorway, she headed for her bedroom, where Moro and Maru crouched in a corner. They knew very well to stay away from the possessed body of Watanuki. If the crown were to see the two soulless children, it would immediately try to leap into them. Then it would have complete control and all hell would break loose.

Yuuko pulled open her closet doors and the girls helped her change clothes to her most impressive. It was not that she wanted to _look_ impressive, but they were her work clothes mostly and they had somehow managed to soak in some extra magic that she could store and use. It was a small amount, but any bit of power was good. Maru and Moro worked to put up her hair and when she was satisfied things were as they should be, she took a deep breath to steady the knots her stomach was doing.

If Himawari decided against it, she had only recourse left to do: take the crown's malice into herself. It would probably, many would say, be more humane since she had lived a very long time. It would be cruel to take away such a young life. Either way, Watanuki would be losing someone very close to him by the time this was all done.

"Yuuko-san?"

She locked eyes with Himawari through the mirror. "You made your decision?"

"Yes."

"And that is?"

"I'll do it."

** End **


	15. Chapter 14:Spiritual Destiny: Absolution

When Yuuko, followed closely by Himawari, entered her salon once again, she was sure that indeed the crown was upping the temperature. And instead of sitting seductively in the center of her barrier like before, obviously wishing to tempt Doumeki, the crown was testing and trying to break out. The slender hands were now red with abrasions and cuts dropped blood that hissed onto her floor as it repeatedly tried to find weaknesses for its cage.

Her appearance was immediately noticed, as a hostile black eye rolled and glared at her. Her eyes twitched a little, studying the white iris that showed no sense or emotion. It was somewhat hopeful to her that half of Watanuki's body was an angel in appearance, as that showed that the crown hadn't _completely_ taken over yet. Watanuki, by virtue of his blood, was far too susceptible to possession and supernatural entities.

"Watanuki, listen to me," she stated, staring at his white eye. "I know you're trapped and we're going to get you out."

Mokona, who had been staying a safe distance away but watching like a guard, hopped onto her shoulder once again and she had yet to see such a determined look on his face like she did now. Really, Watanuki didn't give himself enough credit. He had more friends and those who wanted to protect him than he thought he did. But he was adorably and annoyingly oblivious in that respect.

The black of eye of the crown watched in suspicion as she gestured for Himawari and Doumeki to help her form a triangle around the barrier that was the only thing containing enough power to destroy the world in the blink of an eye. Naturally the barrier wasn't going to last forever, but she didn't have to worry about time in that respect, at least for the moment. It would last at least a few more days even if this didn't work.

Slowly, the girls closed the door behind her and symbols slowly etched their way into the floorboards of the whole room, like black ink. A burst of power from the ciphers tossed and ruffled their hair around their faces. Each and every one of them had some supernatural power, even if some things like Himawari's case, it was a passive ability that couldn't be controlled with will.

Yuuko's gaze didn't waver from that stare and soon, there was a flickering…the iris of that white eye began to move, opening and closing, and drawing in her essence. She couldn't see the spirits of her companions, but she could sense they were there. At the moment, the thing she needed to be concerned about was reaching the core of Watanuki's being.

If she had expected the blackness she dove through to lighten once she got closer, she was quickly disabused of that notion. She broke through an inky sky to see an ocean of blackness below her. The only ripples in it from where Watanuki stood, as he should be in his student uniform. There was a gray glow from somewhere under that water that enabled her to see, but the dreary and depressing area she was in was definitely unnatural.

"Watanuki."

Her feet touched the water, but she didn't sink. It did give way a bit at first before settling, and as she walked forward, she sent more ripples over the endless expanse toward the black horizon. It was like walking on a puddle without getting splashed. Slowly, as if her presence registered, Watanuki turned and she saw the first splash of color in this world.

White tears staining Watanuki's pale cheeks.

"_Watanuki-kun!!_"

Yuuko glanced to her right as suddenly Himawari, followed closely by Doumeki, were running toward them. The tears of relief on the young girl's face reminded the witch of the school girl's decision and she wondered if, in truth, Himawari's whole existence had been leading up to this. Had she been given the unfortunate problem of causing accidents to those around her so that it would strengthen her will and character for this specific task?

She really wished she knew everything sometimes.

"Stop running, you two," she commanded. "Keep a bit of distance between you and Watanuki. You can't touch him anyway right now, since we're all spirits."

Her instructions didn't seem to go over well with Watanuki's boyfriend, but he obviously didn't want to risk the chance that if he didn't do it, it would harm getting the spiritual boy back the way he was supposed to be.

No expression changed the achingly deep sadness that stained Watanuki's pretty face. Slowly, his spirit turned until he faced her directly and she was glad that he showed that much awareness. Perhaps he was drawn to her instinctively because of the power that she held over the other two. She frowned again. Really, it shouldn't have been so easy for the crown to get control…something must have been bothering and weakening Watanuki's spirit.

"Watanuki, come with us. Your triangle of support is here. Come."

Before she'd even finished speaking, a shadow began appearing behind the boy. For a moment, she thought it was the crown, but as it became clearer, that shadow became lighter until it was a white aura. When it gained substance, the figure was astonishing. It, or rather he, was dressed in white armor, accented in gold, from head to toe and wings burst from his back. It was not just one set, but three layered wings that were twice times as large as his body. She'd only seen triple wings on descriptions of religious demons.

"Zachariel…"

Why? Why was this figure of who could only be Watanuki's archangel so much more impressive than her impression of Zachariel in his real incarnation? Was it because it was in Watanuki's spirit? Or even…

"I see now," she muttered.

"What's going on, Yuuko-san?"

At Himawari's shocked voice, she remembered that the girl had no idea that Watanuki had once been an archangel. Well, there wasn't time to explain the whole thing, so she'd have to deal with a little confusion. "Watanuki was once an archangel in another life, but apparently, when Watanuki found out, he was still unable to accept that. He was refusing to believe it and the crown took advantage of that weakness. Had he been accepting enough, the peace in his soul would have been enough to subconsciously fight off the crown and eventually, the crown's existence would have faded away. As it is, it fed off the confusion and chaos in Watanuki's soul and became stronger, finally able to take control."

Zachariel's arms wrapped around Watanuki's shoulders and she glimpsed two sheaths at the archangel's hips. Yes, she remembered that he was the expert of the archangels at double-handed long-swords. There was only minimal recognition of Watanuki's surroundings in his eyes, and his spine was stiff like a steel rod. Even from where she stood, Yuuko could see the fear that was causing him to tremble.

Her mind was taking in many thoughts at once, going at lightning speed and discarding most theories. Sometimes she would take a piece of a theory from one and a part of an idea of another and come up with plausible explanations that she hoped were right. It appeared as if Zachariel was trying hard to comfort or make himself real and accepted to Watanuki, but Watanuki wasn't having it.

"Doumeki-kun, how do you feel about your past incarnation, King Xhaiden?"

There was a moment of silence, as if the archer was trying to figure out what she was asking. "I don't especially feel anything about him. He was once me, but I'm not him now."

"But you're peaceful with the knowledge? You've accepted it calmly?"

"I don't like the knowledge of what I did in my past, but there's nothing I can do to change it. What's done is done, so the only thing to do is move on."

"Good, good…" she murmured with a faintly pleased smile. "Come here, Doumeki-kun."

This would make things a helluva lot easier. She had finally grasped the most crucial piece of knowledge that would unravel all the confusion. Zachariel in front of her was Kami. The archangel Zachariel, _after_ he'd been cast out of heaven and had fallen in love with Xhaiden. That was why he was looking so much more impressive. That was why he was showing emotion of pleading as he held a resistant Watanuki.

When Doumeki reached her side, she gripped his shoulder tightly. There was no figure at Doumeki's back of Xhaiden. No, it was just the archer, showing that he truly had accepted who he'd once been. Despite knowing that he had killed hundreds to thousands of people, that he would be remembered as tyrant nonetheless, he had accepted it.

This was what was holding up everything because Watanuki _couldn't_ do the same with himself.

Zachariel's head lifted a little and through the eye slits of the helmet he wore that obscured all the archangel's features, she could almost feel the hurt longing in that gaze as they stared hungrily at the archer's form. A little more awareness flickered in Watanuki's eyes as his attention was drawn to Doumeki.

She frowned and realized that as much as she'd like to take the time to do this slowly, she didn't have that leisure. Any minute, the crown would realize what was going on and would come rushing to interfere. Here, in the pure power of Watanuki's very soul, they would be helpless. She would be unable to use her powers. If a true battle broke out here with herself, Zachariel, and Doumeki fighting against the full strength the crown had amassed, it would tear Watanuki's soul apart.

"Watanuki," she stated, breaking the heavy silence, "look at Doumeki-kun. He didn't like it, but he accepted the deeds he did in his past life. Why can't you? Why can't you accept what you were? Part of you, in the form of Zachariel behind you, wants to. You yearn to accept this, to move on so you can be free, but you're too stubborn. Why can't you?"

The voice that Watanuki spoke in was breathy and distorted, soft and low. "…I'm afraid."

Her hand tightened on Doumeki's shoulder and sent a warning glance to both teenagers to warn them to be quiet. Their time would come, but at the moment, time was of the utmost importance and this whole situation was very delicate.

"Why?"

"…I don't know."

"Is it because you are scared of the supernatural? Because believing and accepting would mean that even things such as god exist?"

"…"

"Is it because you're afraid that if you acknowledge gods exist that they'll come after you too?"

"…Yes."

"Why are you afraid?" she prodded again, her probing voice going strategically soft and reassuring. "Doumeki-kun would even go up against gods to keep you safe and you have more than enough power that, with training, would keep you safe as well. What is there to be afraid of when you are surrounded by people who want you to protect you?"

Yuuko knew their time was up when she felt the attention of the crown turn to them. Damn it, she had little more than a few minutes before it reached the group. She had to draw this to a conclusion and get them _out_ of there. If she could just get Watanuki to accept Zachariel, then he could fight the crown's bloated power decently. With the crown then being occupied by Watanuki, she could draw the crown straight out of her employee's body and into another.

"…You promise?"

Doumeki nodded, as their gazes met, and she could only watch as relief took over that sad look on Watanuki's face. As if time stretched out, his fall backwards into the arms of Zachariel took forever. There was no resistance left and both their forms became transparent as they melded into one. With a flash of light, both Zachariel and Watanuki were gone.

_Not a moment too soon either_, she thought as the black water beneath them suddenly gave way and plunged them down into the murky depths. For a moment, she thought she'd drown, but there was a glow of blue and she knew that Larg was pulling out all the stops on his power to help them out.

Like a funnel, the water surrounded them and parted, allowing them to cough up the black sludge that had gotten into their lungs. Himawari looked as if she was about to ask what was happening, but she had no time to answer questions. Glowing faintly purple, her aura extended to encompass her companions and they faded out of sight.

When she next blinked, she was back in her own body. Himawari collapsed onto her knees, gasping and coughing. There really was nothing wrong with any of their bodies, but it was no doubt a subconscious reaction, remembering what their souls had gone through. It would also explain why Doumeki seemed out of breath.

In that barrier, Watanuki was glowing. He hovered a few inches off the ground and like Zachariel, he had three pairs of wings of the purest white. His tattered white shirt and black school pants waved and billowed from an invisible funnel of air underneath him. He was obviously fighting with all he had against the crown, by the fact that his left, black eye was blinking to white almost repeatedly.

However, he would never be able to keep it up, she knew. He didn't have the training and by now, the crown had too much of a foothold. It was too powerful. Perhaps if Watanuki was still Kami, he would have been able to do it, but Kami had died and been reborn. Because of that, naturally, Watanuki's body was different, as was his powers. He was the reincarnation of Kami, not Kami himself.

"Himawari? Are you still willing to go through with it?"

"Yes," the girl said without hesitation, and her tired eyes had all the determination Yuuko could have wished for. This was going to hurt Watanuki, she knew, but there was little choice left. She knew that many would say she should take the crown into herself instead of ending the life of someone so young, but she knew that Watanuki'd still need her after this. Actually, she would be needed more than ever.

After this, she was going to have make Watanuki realize just how many people really did love and care about him.

"What's going on?" Doumeki interrupted just as the orb on Larg's head was growing ever brighter a blue color. The disgruntled look in the archer's eyes clearly stated that he did _not_ like not having any idea of what was going on, but like before, Yuuko had no time for explanations. Watanuki was fighting with his whole strength, but he'd tire out like that before long. It was like someone trying to sprint on a marathon run.

She held her hands out in front of her, drawing that filthy, gray-black aura that had surrounded Watanuki before to hover between her palms. It looked absolutely disgusting, to tell the truth, especially since the aura was slowly turning to black sludge that twisted and turned in on itself repeatedly. A single, malevolent eye formed and glared at her.

Once she had it all, the aura and wind that buffeted Watanuki disappeared. He dropped to his knees limply and onto the ground, completely passed out. Strangely enough, the wings didn't disappear. She'd probably end up having to teach him how to summon them at will or something, she thought idly. Or maybe they'd eventually disappear altogether. She didn't know.

The dark purple swords that had been her containment barrier shattered, thanks to Mokona, and Doumeki didn't waste any time in running to his boyfriend. It was obviously awkward to hold someone when they had three layered wings and was as limp as a noodle, but it didn't seem to bother the archer.

Himawari reached down to run her hand through Watanuki's hair as a simple goodbye before joining the Dimensional Witch near the doorway. Her burgundy eyes studied the girl inscrutably for a moment. There was a sad look on her face, but the determination seemed even fiercer now, as if she had just had her reasons for doing this reinforced.

"Would you like to do it in private?"

"Yes." To her credit, as Himawari looked over her shoulder at Doumeki, there was not a single trace of tears or wetness in her gaze. "Doumeki-kun, tell Watanuki-kun that I'm sorry and…tell him that I thank him from the bottom of my heart. He was my first friend and I'll never forget that."

Her girls opened the door softly and the archer's golden eyes didn't miss any movement of his classmate as she left the room, followed by an expressionless Dimensional Witch.

** End **


	16. Chapter 15: Call Me An Angel

Watanuki was shivering when he woke up, and he was actually uncomfortable. It wasn't like sleeping on a futon, as his upper half was significantly higher than his sprawled out legs. And he was on his stomach, which he hated to sleep on. To add on top of all that, there was something very awkward at his back that made it very heavy.

"You awake now?"

He knew that voice. Slowly he dragged his eyes open, noticing immediately that he didn't have his glasses. Then he realized with a frantic leap of his heart why his upper half had been comfy but awkward: he had been lying on his stomach with his shoulders and head in Doumeki's lap!

"Gah!!" he screeched, jumping up and then hissing in pain as jolts of uncomfortable feelings jolted through his nerves. What the hell?! And why did he have this pounding headache? Even his gaze seemed a tad fuzzy, with or without his glasses. "What did you think you were doing?!"

"You were passed out and I didn't think you could lay on your back comfortably."

"Oh?" he snapped ungraciously, "and why is that?"

Doumeki blinked, as if he couldn't believe Watanuki could miss whatever it was that made the archer draw that particular conclusion. With a raised eyebrow, the taller boy pulled out his glasses from his jacket pocket and held them out. Watanuki could only snatch them away, his headache making him more irritable than usual. The lenses were a bit smudged, but that was…okay…

No, it wasn't okay because those lenses were trying to tell him that there was something very huge and white at his back.

Calmer than either one of them had expected, the frailer boy pulled off his glasses, slowly and methodically cleaned them on his shirt, and put them back on. When the white thing didn't go away, he frowned heavily and looked carefully down at his tattered shirt. There was something very wrong about this. Swallowing thickly, he asked, since he didn't have the guts to look himself, "Doumeki, what is behind me?"

"Shizuka."

"…Huh?"

"I call you by your first name, so you have to call me by mine."

Watanuki wasn't in any mood to play the boy's games, so he just gritted his teeth tightly and muttered, "…_Fine!_ Shizuka, what is behind me?"

"You have wings."

"…I thought so." Calmly he took a huge breath and then let it out all in one very expected word: "**_YUUKO-SAN!!!_**"

It seemed to shake the entire shop and the door slid open quickly. The woman was wearing a comfortable kimono, but not one with a lot of spangles. He blinked in surprise to see her looking as tired as she did, despite the same silly grin she always wore. She hadn't even looked this bad when she had come back from that job of hers of making gods.

"Watanuki, please don't shake my shop down," she teased, but he couldn't rise to the bait after seeing her.

"Yuuko-san, are you all right? You look…um…"

"Terrible."

Watanuki glared at his boyfriend. "Could you be a _little_ more tactful?!"

When Doumeki didn't answer, Yuuko's faint chuckle was too loud in the room. "I'm fine, Watanuki. Just very tired."

"Why? And why am I here?! The last thing I remember is taking a nap at lunch with Himawari-chan. What happened to me, why do I have wings?!" The longer he talked, the progressively higher his voice became until he sounded like the frantic boy he should have when finding out he had white wings at his back. And when he chanced a glance, it didn't help his state of mind to find that there were not one, but three pairs.

The atmosphere suddenly grew thick and smothering at the mention of the schoolgirl's name and he looked between his boyfriend and his employer several times, his eyes pleading them to tell him what was going on.

"Watanuki, you were possessed by the crown. The poison you were injected with before when you went to get it was not a cause, but a side effect from when the crown tried to take over your body. When I destroyed the crown, it lost most of its power and fell dormant in you. It managed to take advantage of the chaos in your soul as you subconsciously fought with the knowledge of the fact that you were once an archangel and gained a foothold. It almost completely possessed you." There was a pause as Watanuki tried to take it all in and a look that he had never seen crossed the woman's face as she stood in the doorway: regret. "I made a mistake."

"Mis-mistake?"

"I didn't call the problem right and that complicated things."

"B-but it's over now, right?" he asked, somewhat desperately. Something was still wrong, there was more to this whole thing, if the atmosphere hadn't changed. Doumeki shifted to sit closer and reached out to hold his hand. In panicked confusion, he glanced down at their twined fingers and then back up at Yuuko. This meant bad, bad news was going to be said and already he didn't want to hear it. "Right?"

"Yes, but not without sacrifices."

Oh god, not that word. If there was any word that he hated more than anything in the whole world, it was 'sacrifice'. He'd had enough of 'sacrifice'. His throat was suddenly dry and though he tried to swallow, it was like he couldn't. "S-s-sacrifice? W-who?"

"…Himawari."

Suddenly his head was somewhat dizzy as he forgot to breathe. He fancied, in a tiny and unoccupied corner of his mind, that all his internal organs ceased to function in sheer shock. Sacrifice and Himawari should _not_ be put together. They didn't, couldn't, mix together in any way. Not his friend.

"Wh-what do you mean?"

Yuuko's eyes were steady on his kneeling form, as if she knew he didn't want to hear it, was afraid of it, but was determined to tell him anyway. Yuuko was the one person that would never let him run away from anything. "The crown had an enormous foothold on your body and soul. In order to save your life, it needed to be drawn out and into another vessel."

"V-vessel?"

As if she didn't even hear him, she continued in a heartlessly clear tone, "The vessel, a person, had to have a very strong will and attachment to you. That person's soul would be forever in a constant battle for dominance with the crown's influence. I expect that eventually, with time, the crown's power will fade with nothing to feed on, but it will be a very, very long time until that happens."

"I don't—"

"Himawari chose that path." When there was no reaction from Watanuki, she stated even more firmly, "She's dead, Watanuki. Her body ended up unable to physically take her own power and that of the crown as it melded with her soul. I have her soul safe, you need not worry, but—"

"_No!_ Yuuko-san, why did you let her?!" Watanuki didn't even register the tears that were streaming down her cheeks. All he felt was a hurt betrayal from his employer. She was supposed to be all-powerful. She was supposed to just wave her damn pipe or sake bottle or whatever and things were supposed to just get all better. Sure, there would still be a bit of sadness and regret, but not this! Not someone dying for him _again!_

"That was her wish, Watanuki. I don't have the luxury to choose which wishes I want to grant. It was her decision and it was the _only_ way to save your life. She wanted to do this and she had no regrets."

"How the hell do you know?!" he screamed. "How the hell do you know if she had regrets?!"

"Because if she did, the crown's influence would have taken over her soul instantly when the spell was performed," she countered calmly in the face of Watanuki's teary rage. "As it is, there is a strange balance at the moment. Neither is giving way and she could not have become this strong if she had regrets."

"Yuuko-san, _you—_"

"I'm not perfect, Watanuki," she interrupted, turning to leave the room. "I can't do _everything_. I can't _know_ everything. No one can, not even gods."

As the door closed once again, Watanuki completely forgot about his wings. Right then, his panicking over such a thing seemed infinitesimal and petty compared to the knowledge that Himawari was dead and it was because of him. Everyone ended up dead because of him. Who would be next?! Doumeki?!

Frantically he turned to his boyfriend, but as if he read what Watanuki was about to say, the archer shook his head. "Forget it, I'm not leaving you and it's useless to argue with me about it."

After that, Watanuki didn't have the strength to argue. He didn't have the strength to yell. All he could do was slump and cry. Doumeki's strong arms dragged him close and hugged him as tightly as he could, regardless of the awkwardness of the wings, but nothing lessened the crushing defeat in his heart. He had vowed that he would put up with Yuuko's jobs for the purpose of getting rid of his ability and becoming stronger, but he had only ended up killing a close friend.

"She told me to tell you that she was sorry and to thank you. She said you were her first friend and she'd never forget that."

"Did she tell you anything else?" he hiccupped.

"No."

That meant she had decided to take her feelings for Doumeki silently to the grave as well and that only made him cry harder. Here he was with everything she had ever wanted and not once had she ever held it against him. She had _thanked_ him, even! Unreasonable, survivor's guilt could only wrack his body with sobs that caused his throat to go raw and hurt every time he cried. His hands trembled even as he gripped Doumeki's shirt tightly. He was a useless creature that didn't deserve to live! What was his purpose in life?! To get everyone around him killed?! _Why had he been born?!_

Listening to the sobbing from inside the room, Yuuko could only smile in a bitter and sad way, her eyes following the hallway to her bedroom and the jar that housed Himawari's spirit inside it. "He really is the perfect picture of a grieving angel."

She really hated the high prices.

****

The whole school seemed to mourn Himawari's death, even though she had not had any friends other than Doumeki and Watanuki. Doumeki had gone to school, but Watanuki hadn't, which was understandable in a way. The boy was so busy grieving that he hadn't yet even given consideration to how to remove the wings from his back. He could barely stand and walk with them. They didn't seem _quite_ as big in length as they had been in his soul, but it was still an awkward thing.

Several teachers, knowing how close the three students had been, had suggested to Doumeki that he might seek counseling, but he never did. Right then, the one who needed counseling wasn't him. He had to spend every minute that he could with Watanuki, as he feared that if he didn't, the boy would get some stupid idea of disappearing without a word from his life in order to 'protect him'.

"Soon you won't be able to enter my shop again."

He looked up as he passed the gateposts to see Yuuko dressed to go out and waiting in her yard for him. For some reason, knowing that he wouldn't be able to enter soon was reassuring to him. It meant that soon, perhaps, their lives would go back to normal. That Watanuki would be able to leave Yuuko's shop and go back to his apartment. That they could go to school together once more and he might be able to, just maybe, get Watanuki to smile again.

"He's waiting for you inside. I won't be back until tomorrow morning, so make sure to watch over Watanuki and see that he moves around and eats."

With a keen eye, he didn't miss seeing a jar in her hand. Inside that jar was a tiny ball of white light. The orbs rays weren't strong enough to even be equal to a light bulb, but somehow, it seemed infinitely softer and kinder. He could make a decent guess that that was probably Himawari's soul. "Where are you going?"

She glanced down at the jar as well. "To deliver this to someone who can take care of it better than me and patience for a long time to come."

Doumeki didn't press her for more information, as he trusted the woman, strange as that was. If she said she knew someone who could care for Himawari's soul better than he could, then he believed her and there was no need to worry.

"I made sure the girls won't bother you and I'm taking Mokona with me," she called over her shoulder with that silly and usual grin he always saw when she talked about Watanuki, "so you can get as wild as you want." She winked and laughed and then she was out of sight.

It was at times like this that he got a glimpse of what Watanuki must have to deal with all day and he thought he could understand the frazzled mentality he had occasionally.

"Kimihiro?"

There was no answer to his call, but he did hear some banging and noises from the kitchen. That was odd. Very rarely did Watanuki move around, regardless of wings, even after the week had passed after Himawari's death. Did that mean he was feeling better?

It was somewhat funny to see an out-of-sorts Watanuki trying to cook with three layered wings that were, at the very least, the same size as his body, if not bigger. It was also heartwarming, that this was a day that he could see Watanuki not crying as he walked in. When Watanuki nearly dropped a pan on his foot, a faint chuckle escaped from his lips.

In shock, Watanuki whirled around and his wings ended up banging into the refrigerator and cupboards and thankfully all the things he knocked down to the floor weren't made of glass. Really, the kitchen wasn't big enough for Watanuki and three pairs of wings. There just _wasn't_.

"Don't scare me like that!" came the strident and indignant yell.

"You look so cute with an apron and wings. Especially with no shirt."

Watanuki flushed. They had found that once the shirt was off, there was no way to get it back on and Yuuko had refused to lend any shirts that they'd somehow have to cut huge holes in the back of to wear. Watanuki himself had refused to ruin his limited amount of shirts for such a purpose either, so it was shirtless most of the time, which Doumeki had absolutely no problem with.

"You could at least say I look beautiful or magnificent!" he snapped finally, turning away to hide his glowing, red cheeks. "Don't I look even _somewhat_ impressive?"

Doumeki could already recognize that Watanuki's fake cheer was fading when his last sentence had ended up petering off into a whisper. His face took on an achingly sad look and he knew that any minute, the boy was going to be crying. With a sigh of sympathy, he reached around the wings to pull Watanuki toward him. As usual, Watanuki's tears stained his shirt, but he didn't mind. Despite the fact that Watanuki was crying, he was cheered up slightly himself. The fact that Watanuki had attempted to try to cook and had even acted somewhat normal, even for a few minutes, meant that he was trying to get over his grief. It meant he was trying to move on.

"I don't think I could do this without you," Watanuki muttered into his chest. The words were garbled, but for someone in love like Doumeki was, there was no way that he couldn't understand what was being said.

"I'll be here long after you don't need me."

Soon the only sound in the room was Watanuki's crying, but that fell to silence soon enough. He figured it would take a long time for Watanuki to truly get over Himawari's death, but he'd be there every step of the way.

"My grandmother is going to be coming for Christmas."

"You want me to come?"

"You need to ask that?"

And for the first time that whole week, he saw a tremulous, faint smile touch those sad lips. "Guess not."

They stayed in that silence, Doumeki clutching Watanuki tightly and trying to keep the boy warm even with the heater. Lacking a shirt must be really bad…

"…Hey."

"…What?"

"I don't think you should lose the wings."

"………_Excuse me?_"

"You look cute and I like you without a shirt."

"………_**SHIZUKA!!**_"

** End **


End file.
